In Another Time & Place
by Regency
Summary: AU. Laura escaped Cassadine Island with baby Nikolas in 1983 but didn't dare go back to Port Charles for fear of recapture. After several years on the run, Laura & Nikolas return with the Cassadines on their trail and their only hope of escaping of Port Charles alive is to abandon hope for what might have been once and for all. Luke Spencer was never going to make that easy. WIP.
1. Chapter 1

Author: Regency

Title: In Another Time and Place

Pairings: Luke/Laura, Luke/Holly, implied Laura/Stefan, implied Laura/Stavros

Summary: Laura escaped Cassadine Island with baby Nikolas in 1983 but didn't dare go back to Port Charles for fear of recapture. After several years on the run, Laura & Nikolas take refuge in the only safe place left for them with the Cassadines on their trail. But, their only hope of getting out of Port Charles alive is to abandon hope for what might have been once and for all. With a conflicted yet convincing Luke Spencer in the picture, nothing's ever been harder.

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable as being from _General Hospital_. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun. Any dialogue lifted from any episode of the above is borrowed with love.

~!~

Laura shushed her son's chattering when she heard a scuffling at the door. Her scalp prickled. There was a knock.

She snapped her fingers and pointed Nik towards his empty backpack, mouthing "Pack!" urgently. Though the men at the door were familiar to her, they were by no means family friends.

Laura crept to her bedroom to retrieve the bag she kept ready in her closet, sparing a thought to grab a wig off a theater head on her vanity. Nik appeared with bulging knapsack in hand at her door. She questioned whether he'd need everything he'd packed, but there wasn't a moment to waste. The knocking had turned to banging, and it was coming from the front door and the back.

_At least two men, possibly more._ Experience had taught her to expect the worst.

Nik grabbed her hand to lead her down the short staircase to the ground floor. He seemed to know just where he was taking her and soon she figured it out, too. _The cellar._

The cellar boasted a battalion of dusty wine bottles worth more than their lives combined. Part of their rent was forgiven on the promise of Laura overseeing the amateur sommelier's growing collection of rare vintages. Laura detoured a moment to snag one of the more expensive bottles to sell on their way. She wouldn't be getting her next paycheck, this would have to do.

Her son directed her to the low-slung windows covered in velvet panels to keep out light. They were just big enough to crawl through. Nik didn't have to explain; Laura was already scrambling up the pegs of an empty wine rack to ease their way out. The windows were securely locked, but they were nothing against the bottle of 1964 Beaune and Laura's persistence.

A door upstairs gave way with a mighty _crack_, just in time for Laura to shove the window out of its frame. Nik scrambled up the rack over the sill with a boost on his mother's legs. Laura wasted no time scurrying up after him. The element of surprise escape was on their side, but that would only buy them minutes.

Luck was with them tonight. It was long enough.


	2. Chapter 2

Laura and Nikolas made their escape to Laura's hometown of Port Charles, New York in the fall of 1990. She had just enough money in her pocket to book them a room at a bed & breakfast on Royal Street, where Nikolas would stay during the day while she donned a disguise to look for work.

Laura stood at the mirror doing battle with a stringy titian wig, trying in vain to make it look something approaching natural. Her shaking hands didn't help matters.

She and Nikolas had fled Boston three nights ago when friends of Laura's had spied Stavros' goons on the prowl near the pub she bartended on University Row. There hadn't been time to pack more than two wigs and a few changes of clothes before her illegitimate husband's minions had come thumping at both home doors. She and Nikolas had made their escape through the wine cellar and a taxi, having had to abandon their car when they found the tires slashed. They'd ridden to a diner they used to love to leave a goodbye letter for Gilda, an older woman who'd taken a shine to them in the five months Laura and Nikolas had resided nearby. In seven years of running, it was the only note Laura ever left. She prayed it wouldn't be the final note of her life.

But today was a new day, and today Laura needed to find a job. Clandestine escapes cost more than Laura could save when she had a growing boy to feed and needed to keep them both in clothes and out of the rain. Each new destination meant at least three sets of bus tickets to throw Stavros off their scent for a few weeks more. Having spent a small fortune every six months for all this time, Laura knew what it meant to work her fingers to the bone to make ends meet.

She took a deep breath and tried to smile at her reflection. As long as they were alive, there was hope. _ I have to believe. For Nikolas, I have to._

Nikolas was sprawled on the threadbare carpet with his crayons and notepad drawing what looked to Laura like an overgrown smurf in a cherry red leotard with green hair.

Laura gave up on rearranging her wig to crouch down beside him. "What're you drawing, sweetie?"

"It's Captain Planet, mama. He's going to save Port Charles from the Ice Man."

She resisted the chill that shot up her spine, hiding her fear in an enlightened, "Oh!" The Ice Man was her name for Mikkos when she told Nikolas stories about her life before Stavros and his kin, before Cassadine Island. They were her baby boy's favorite stories. "Well, I think that's a very nice Captain Planet. I think we should put this in the scrapbook, what do you think?"

Nik sucked his lip, his dark brows drawing together as he thought. _Just like Stefan._ She blinked rapidly to hold her tears at bay. Her emotions lay closest to the surface after a narrow escape; she'd be fine by tomorrow. _Believe, believe, believe._

Having evidently given her question ample consideration, Nik shook his head vigorously. "I don't like this one, may I make an even better one to keep, please?"

Laura's grin was more genuine this time. _So polite._ "I think it's beautiful, but we'll save the next one, no problem." They both knew there wasn't much room in their scrapbook for keepsakes and so chose each one wisely. _'Each moment of consequence,'_ a wise younger prince once said.

Nik gave a pleased nod and set to finishing his drawing. Her son was never one to leave a task, once started, undone.

Laura stood up and brushed the wrinkles out of her skirt, then grabbed her purse. "All right, I'm about to head out for the day. Remember, around noon, Mrs. Ward will bring lunch and leave it outside for you. Wait until she leaves before you bring it in. I should be able to bring home dinner, but if I can't, she will also be bringing dinner. Nikolas, it's important you don't leave the room until I get home, not for anything. You know that, right?"

He hummed in the affirmative.

"I need to hear you, _mily_. What did I just say?"

Her _mily_, her darling lifted his eyes from his arduous endeavor in red Crayola to peer up at her. "Don't leave the room and don't talk to strangers, not even Mrs. Ward."

"What else?" They had hard rules, some that never changed no matter their location.

"Don't answer the door for anyone unless it's an emergency. If there's smoke, call 9-1-1 and crawl out the window." He gave a sage nod in closing.

"Do you remember where to wait for me if you have to run away?"

Nik squinted and ducked his head in embarrassment.

Laura leaned down to ruffle hair and took up one of his colors to write the answer on his first sketch. _General Hospital._ She stopped him from reading her answer out loud. _The walls might have ears._

"That's our secret place to meet. If anything happens and you need to get away, ask a grownup in a uniform—and it has to be a uniform you recognize, honey—where that is. Follow their directions very carefully, but don't be afraid to ask for help if you don't understand. They'll take you there, I promise." If she couldn't show up to claim him, at least he'd have a chance. _Maybe Dad will be there to take him._ On a lark, Laura scrawled her father's name under GH. "If you have to go there, ask for him, he'll know to keep you safe."

Nik patted her hand. "Don't worry, everything will be okay."

Laura was trying to have his same childish faith. "I know, but plans are for just in case." She dropped a kiss on his head and got up to go. "Love you lots, be good. I put fresh snacks in your backpack. Five cookies and no more."

He stuck out his tongue. She poked it with a bare finger to his profound displeasure and her amusement.

"Watch it, mister, or no cookies." His devil-may-care beam put paid to her sternness.

She inhaled slowly in an attempt to calm her worried heart. This was stalling, she was afraid to leave him alone. _He should be in school with other children. He should have a real home and a real family. What am I doing to him?_ Stalling tinted by self-doubt was not a new phenomenon for her.

"And make sure to read a few more chapters of your book so we can talk about them when I get home." Nikolas loved _The Boxcar Children_ books. He devoured their adventures like the words of friends. But then books were the only friends he had time to make in their runabout life.

"I will, mama." He was drawing more vociferously now, with the sort of studied concentration that she'd learned to read as dismissal, a nonverbal 'you may go.' _You can take the Cassadine off the island…_

"Okay." She went to the door, then turned back once more. "Just remember, Jeffrey Lee Rex, I love you so much."

He waved and she was off.

Her last words had been a warning. 'We're the Rexes now. Don't forget.'

Stepping out into the autumn morning, Laura bolstered her flagging spirits with a mantra. "I am Kay Rex. Hear me roar."

* * *

Laura let her chin-length auburn hair fall in her eyes. Her natural eye color was obscured by dark brown contact lenses and a summer lifeguarding at the beach had gifted her with a robust tan most wouldn't immediately associate with her younger self. She thought she must have looked as far from Laura Webber Baldwin Spencer as she felt. Her safety and Nikolas' was counting on her ability to deceive the people she had looked at every day for years.

She ducked her head when passing Kelly's on the waterfront. She was sure she'd seen Bobbie at the counter, and Ruby, too! Laura walked a little faster through the morning drudge, casually swiping a paper someone had left behind on one of the outdoor tables. _What better way to find work than the want ads?_

On finding an empty bench near the docks, Laura began to skim the city's latest.

_'General Hospital's own Dr. Tony Jones and Nurse Bobbie Jones, married last year, welcome adoptive son Lucas Jones into their home.'_

"You finally married up. Way to go, Bobbie," Laura murmured to herself, not entirely insincerely. While there was little love to be lost between her nominal sister-in-law and herself anymore, Laura didn't begrudge her any happiness now. _I bet Luke spoils his little namesake rotten._ She had to ignore the pang that sprouted in her chest when she thought it. _We'd have made nine years two days from now._ Discovering that Luke was actually alive had been a catalyst for her final escape attempt, but the revelation hadn't set her free. She may not have been a prisoner in a jail with walls anymore, but there were other kinds of hell.

Unable to stomach that line of thinking further, Laura flipped quickly through the other sections of the paper until she reached the section marked 'Employment'. There was an ad to match the 'hiring' poster in the window at Kelly's. They were seeking a part-time waitress. Laura knew better than to even consider it. ELQ was still in search of bright young women to act as receptionists. _It's a risk, but I can't rule it out, even if I probably wouldn't get it._ She wasn't so young and bright anymore, not really. Life had rung her dry.

Although the PCPD was also hiring receptionists, Laura wasn't nearly so eager to try her hand at deceiving Robert Scorpio and his ilk of spies-turned-lawmen.

Laura sat stock-straight and gasped when she finally set eyes on the entry she'd been praying for. _'Port Charles seeking 50 census workers to assist in conducting the 1990 city-wide census. No experience required. Inquire at City Hall.'_ She hadn't even noticed what year it was. Keeping track wasn't usually high on her list of priorities.

_I could do this. I have a license, a mock-up birth certificate and Social Security card, and Gilda would probably give me a reference in a pinch._ Laura bit her lip. _It's not like I have a ton of options to choose from._ She folded the paper under her arm and abandoned her bench, setting off in the direction of downtown. _Please, god, help me. I need this job._

On passing GH, Laura had to cross the street to avoid running into an arguing Alan and Monica Quartermaine, both of whom seemed steeped in high dudgeon over one or another drama involving Laura's parents. She didn't dare come any closer despite a desperate desire to know just what all she'd missed. _Mom died in an accident years ago, it's probably just them digging up ancient history like always._ That didn't stop the young girl in her from aching to be sure. _Are you there, Mom? It's me, Laura. I could really use you with me today._

Laura kept her head down and pressed on, ignoring the barking pain in her feet from her patently awful shoes. She'd given them a careful polish before bed last night, so they looked brand new, but the damage was in the soles, not that she was much of a fashion plate these days, anyway. _Just a few hours more and I can go home to Nik—to Rex. Remember, Laura, it's Jeff Rex for now. It has to be._

It was just before nine when Laura slipped into the lobby of Port Charles City Hall and the place was already buzzing with secretaries and receptionists in soft neutral separates and low-heeled shoes, and messengers seeking signatures and handing over brown dossiers in exchange. The scene wasn't much different from the ELQ mailroom save for the civil service-class air. She half-expected to see Luke holding up a wall someplace, waiting for her.

Laura dug around in her purse for a pair of thick black specs to perch on her nose. Cyrano, her tutor on the island, had forgotten them after a lesson once and she'd grabbed them in a fit of sentiment when she was packing the picnic basket she would use to deceive the servants on her way off the island. Their prescription was stronger than Laura could stand for more than an hour at a stretch and they made her squint worse than they helped, which was perfect when the game was hiding in plain sight. Laura hadn't ever been a beautiful squinter.

Thus costumed, Laura approached the receptionist and asked to be directed to the Census office.

"It's on the fourth floor. If you're here for a job, you'd better hurry. People were waiting when opened up at seven."

Laura's heart dropped into her stomach. _Of course they were._ She tried to smile regardless. "Thanks for the heads-up." It was a good thing she hadn't thrown her newspaper away.

"Chin-up, honey. You've still got a shot. Some of the guys applying are real roughnecks. No way will anybody open up the door for them. They'll be out on their ears in a day. If you don't make it this time, come back tomorrow, I'll put in a good word for you. I know the boss."

Laura narrowed her eyes, suspicious. The woman did look a little familiar. "Why would you go out of your way for me like that? You don't even know me."

"Maybe not, but I know a woman in need of a break when I see one. So from one woman in trouble to another, just think of it as a helping hand."

_There aren't enough gift horses for me to look this one in the mouth. _Laura hugged her purse to her chest, nodding. "Thanks, I really mean that. Fourth floor, right?"

"You bet. Good luck."

"I could use it." She kept her fingers crossed the entire trip up, counting the floors as the lights flashed on the wall panel. The scene when she arrived was controlled pandemonium. Prospective workers filled blocks of folding chairs along the walls and a six-by-six array of them in the middle of the room, all facing a desk sitting sentry before a fogged glass sliding window and a door that was pointedly shut. The desk boasted a sign reading 'sign in here' when all Laura wanted to do was turn and run right back to Boston with her son and her wigs and her god-awful shoes. Every eye on the floor had swung in her direction with the _ping_ of the elevator on her arrival. She hadn't been under this much scrutiny since her first night tending the Lodestone pub what felt like a decade ago.

Instead of running, Laura did much as she'd done then. She threw back her shoulders and strode to the front desk to sign in. If she could face down college boys, she could face down any doubters the Port Charles Census could shove at her. She filled her 'time-in,' her reason for coming, and signed 'Kay Rex' in a jaunty signature that in no way resembled her own. The monochrome office worker manning the desk handed her a short stack of paper to complete.

"Sorry, we're out all of clipboards. Fill this out, return it, and you'll be called in if we're still in need of workers before we reach our quota."

Laura was suddenly unsure. "Should I stay or…?" It was a stupid question and she knew it as soon as she'd spoken it.

The elder man of thinning hair, if endless tolerance, merely sighed. "If you'd like to be considered among the first batch, I would recommend it."

Laura nodded, petrified, and turned away quickly. It was to her profound credit that blushing wasn't a part of her repertoire or she would have lost her confidence entirely. The crowd she'd turned to face wasn't so much mean as aggressively resigned. As all the seats along the wall had been filled, she was left to pick her way through the phalanx to an unoccupied chair around the middle of the second row. Grumbling was kept at a minimum, thanks in part, she supposed, to her 'pardon me's and apologies. She was plum exhausted by the time she actually made contact with her seat cushion. There wasn't much of it, but what there was felt like heaven. That is, until she realized she'd only completed of the battle; there was still the paperwork and then the inevitable slog back to the front.

There wasn't a part of Laura that didn't want to cry all over again. Nevertheless, she sucked it up the way she'd been doing since she was a girl and she got on with it. She fetched a capless pen from a corner of her purse where it was busy staining the nylon lining like the Little Engine That Could. _With my luck, the ink will die before I get done._

Laura filled out the first page quick, filling in name, age, and birthdate with the fictitious details that would match her counterfeit records. _The things a tech-savvy frat boy will do for fifty dollars and a dinner date._ They would serve her well one more time. Laura fudged the education section, putting down various European day colleges she'd worked at when Nikolas was smallest and she hadn't earned enough to bring them back stateside. She wasn't lying completely, merely re-interpreting the questions she was being asked. _I did learn a lot._ There was something to be said for the School of Life.

She listed her old address on the off-chance that that would keep whoever was doing the assigning from having her canvas her old neighborhood. Acquaintances were easy enough to fool, family would be a pipedream.

'_References,'_ she left blank since they were listed as optional. _No need to involve Gilda unless I have to._

The rest of the packet was disclaimers and liability waivers under which she ceded the right to sue the City of Port Charles for any wrongdoing in the event she was injured in the line of duty and in which they ceded any and all liability for her actions. _That's somewhat worrying._ _Here's hoping my face is still as trustworthy as it used to be._ Laura signed everything in an unrecognizable, illegible slash of ink just as her pen died.

_At least I made it to the end. Now back to the front._ Laura was just gathering her wits to make her second trip when she felt a tap on the shoulder. It was another man around her age with a resigned, drawn expression she was beginning to recognize the meaning of.

"Yes?"

"You don't have to get up. Here," he reached up and tapped the woman on the front row to get their attention. She turned back with only the slightest discontent lighting her face. "Can you pass her app up to the desk? The entire row will appreciate it."

Laura let out a soundless squeak but still offered it up when the other woman took it. She shifted in discomfort when the woman gave it an once-over and handed it back.

"You forgot to initial the first page. They'll throw it out if you don't."

Laura's ears grew hot in a flush as she leaned in to do that last bit, though she couldn't help feeling a wash of relief when the intake worker took the papers without missing a beat.

"Thank you," Laura called out loud enough for them both to hear. She got matching shrugs for her efforts. "And thank you," she told the man beside her that much quieter. There was a strange stillness to this room that Laura hated to disturb, like they were all holding their breath right before lightning struck.

"Think nothing of it. Temp work's got its customs and they don't change no matter who's hiring. So save yourself some trouble and pass on the good will. What else can ya do, you know?"

Laura raised her shoulder, trying not to think of the dozen office phones she'd answered in the last year alone and the bar countertops and tables she'd scrubbed or floors she'd mopped. "Yeah, I guess I do."

* * *

The wait was as mind-numbing as a Cassadine formal dinner with none of the intrigue. Laura's penchant for small talk had gone the way of the Dodo Bird when she and Nikolas left Europe. Europe was the bigger sandbox to play hide-go-find in, but anywhere in the U.S. was that much closer to home, making the danger of a careless word all the greater. Thankfully, no one else seemed to be much for idle chatter either and the milling crowd lapsed into a quiet intermittently disturbed by faint snores and people slipping into the dark door behind the desk and spilling from the elevator in drams.

Laura herself was nodding into a light doze when she was awakened by a tap on the knee. She blinked and had to push up her glasses from where they'd slid down her nose. Startled, she quickly sat up from where she'd slumped to lean on the person beside her. It wasn't the man from earlier, who'd been called to the window some time ago and into the dark door shortly thereafter, though the man she was leaning on now appeared more amused by her than aggravated at the inconvenience she must have caused.

Laura grimaced. "I'm sorry about that."

"No worries, but I think they're calling your name up there. You'd better go before somebody takes it upon themselves to go for you."

Laura gathered up her purse. "Thanks."

He winked. "Best of luck, and maybe try to get some sleep, huh."

Laura laughed and agreed. There was more grumbling for her exit than her entry had garnered, only because most of her row-mates had been napping right along with her.

The window was manned by an older woman whose eyes were as kind as Lesley's had ever been. _Mom, is that you?_ Laura wanted to believe.

"You called me?"

"So I did. I need to make a photocopy of your identification and your Social Security card if you have it."

Laura unearthed both fakes from her bottomless handbag and handed them over. She fought the impulse to drum her fingers on the counter. _There's no way they'll know they're counterfeit. They're as good as any originals I've ever seen._ The prodigal Cassadines had amassed a cache of doctored papers fit to overthrow the odd unruly dictatorship; it could surely fool an old lady in a little city on the edge of Lake Ontario.

The woman returned with her Xerox copies and stapled them to Laura's paperwork. "Everything appears to be in order here." She pushed both cards back to Laura and nodded toward the door. "Someone will be at the door to meet you and give you with a short overview of your duties. They'll also provide you with your credentials. Go right through the door to your left."

"Yes, thank you."

Laura exhaled in a rush of exhilaration. _This can work. This _will _work. Thanks, Mom._

She stepped over and grasped the door handle to find it cool and easy to open. It hadn't been locked at all, only inconveniently shut. On the other side was another woman, this one reminding Laura of Monica. She grinned because she couldn't do anything else.

"I got it?"

The other woman handed her a badge identifying her as an authorized census taker. "You got it."

It was the work of ten men for Laura not to scream in triumph. She was sure that Nikolas never understood how close they came to poverty on a regular basis and she never wanted him to understand. Their choices were to survive or perish and Laura wouldn't see them ruined. _We can leave here. We can actually leave._

"I'm ready for anything. What do you need me to do?"

* * *

Laura was put to work immediately on the neighborhoods nearest to downtown Port Charles. Her street team included the woman who'd passed her application in and the man who'd she made a human pillow of. They were Donna and Evan, respectively, and they were a riot. Donna was a gleefully childless wonder of the world and Evan was a lone father to a boy and girl. Kay Rex, the woman Laura was today, was as childless as Donna. Jeffrey Rex made for camouflage when he needed to, not before. There was no cloak like nonexistence.

There were a number of housewives and nannies to talk to and they were all too happy to comply at Laura's first compliment of their flowers, pets, or children. The three-person team made quick work of their assigned streets and reconvened in the City Hall lobby for the bag lunch the city was providing free of charge. They ate on the steps, watching harried office workers rush by in droves.

Evan munched on potato chips. "I didn't think I'd be spending year thirty-seven knocking on doors for the Census."

Donna kicked off her sensible shoes and wiggled her painted toes in the open air. "I don't think anybody grows up wanting to do this kind of thing."

Laura sipped her bottled apple juice, not daring to expose her own embattled feet to prying eyes. "Come on, there's usually one kid in grade school whose dad worked for the Census. That's all Daddy ever talked about, so that's all Junior ever wanted to do. If he's lucky he grows out of it by high school."

"If not, he's the guy at the front desk," Donna quipped between bites of bologna on white.

"At least that guy gets a regular paycheck," Evan chimed in, bunching up his empty chip bag and tossing it in the direction of a garbage bin. _Missed!_

"There is that," Laura admitted and went back to her sandwich and attendant pickle. Her warped vision made the offerings somewhat more appetizing.

Donna whistled, "You really know how to bring down a room, Van."

He sighed. "Couldn't have said it better myself."

They worked for another three hours after lunch and returned to the office once more to pick up their pay. Two hundred dollars cash for a day's work. Laura's exhale of relief could have been heard from Germany, or Greece.

Believe it or not, for a few brief hours Laura had managed to forget all about Greece.

_Maybe the cure for all ills really is home._

* * *

That night, Laura brought back pizza for she and Nikolas to share and they stayed up well past bedtime discussing his favorite scenes from _The Mystery in the Sand._ He could hardly sit still for wanting to recount every exciting moment for his mother hear. She listened and listened until his eyes grew too heavy to open and she tucked him in to sleep.

After Nikolas had gone to bed, Laura proudly placed his prize drawing of Captain Planet in the scrapbook under 'age seven, 1990.' They got to carry so little of his childhood with them that Laura cherished every memento they were able to preserve. These were the moments that Stavros could never steal away from them now. They'd been lived and would be remembered by whomever survived. This was what Laura put up such a vigorous fight to guard, crayon pictures and untested, untainted childish joy.

_Our brilliant, talented boy. You'd be so proud of Nikolas, Stefan._ Laura's eyes welled up in memory of the man who had been her lover, who had wanted so much to father her son, who had been her friend when there wasn't a friend to be had. Had he lived, their Great Escape might have been a second chance, or for their family a first. His death at Stavros and Helena's whim remained a demon that haunted Laura's every stride.

_We'll escape them someday, Stef. For us and because you never could, we'll get away._

Laura slipped into the large, soft bed beside her snuffling child and dreamed of short blessed weeks in the Greek sun and a cove that was their family secret alone.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day dawned too early and Laura was reminded of her god-awful shoes by the threadbare carpet covering the floor. Taking care not to wake Nikolas, she hobbled to the bathroom to shower, wincing at blisters that had burst on the walk home the evening before. She covered the soap and water rinsed wounds with Band-Aids, vowing to wear her much-adored boots this time around. They were beginning to show their age in wear, but anything was better than heels. _And I can afford to buy a spare set, now._ It was time she and her son did a little shopping to replace what they'd had to run without.

_Wyndham's. Can I risk Wyndham's?_ Did she want to? Memories lived in the walls of that store, in the gleaming floors and escalators, under the great speakers that had crooned _Fascination_ as she and Luke plunged unknowingly into the depths of star-crossed love.

Wyndham's was their best bet to get all they wanted in one stop yet Laura was more than a little wary of having Nikolas with her when she wandered. At best, he could still escape if she was recognized, but not if they were seen together, not in Port Charles where there still lived some that had known her. She wasn't willing to give them hope she'd have to shatter.

Laura tugged at her disheveled wig pulled haphazardly over her natural blonde. She'd given up dyeing when her hair started to come out in clumps during a long job in Morocco. She'd accumulated an assortment of convincing theatrical wigs since; she regretted being forced to abandon the lot of them at the Boston brownstone.

Around six, Laura snuck out to retrieve fresh buns and fruit from the kitchen, and to say good morning to Mrs. Ward. Like the woman at City Hall, the widow had pegged Laura as a woman harassed by circumstance and had asked no questions when she arrived at the B&B late into the night.

"How's that baby of yours, Ms. Rex?"

Laura tried not to let her smile freeze on her lips. _She means well._ "Good. Hale as always. Sleeping. I just came to grab us a bite to eat."

"Then, you've come just in time." Mrs. Ward bent down to pull a baking sheet of pastries from the oven. Laura's mouth watered at the smell. "The rush usually starts about fifteen minutes from now. Take your pick and don't be stingy, growing babies need their buns."

"That they do, Mrs. Ward. But they also need their teeth, so I'll settle for one of each kind for each of us."

Mrs. Ward's sparkling grin was infectious. "I'll hold some over for a midnight snack. No need for regrets over every little thing. And it's Mary Mae, honey; Mae Mae to that baby of yours. I may be older, but I'm not old yet. Now, these buns still need glazing and there's cream for the scones. Care to do the honors?"

"Love to." Laura took the proffered mixing bowl of icing and set to work on the sumptuous cinnamon buns occupying half the baking sheet. The home and hearth fragrance of cinnamon, sugar, and rich butter filled up her chest as promises of riches hadn't ever, and only home could. Laura stepped back on realizing she'd positively soaked the cinnamon buns where a drizzle would have done. "Sorry, I'm not much of a pastry chef."

"Don't worry about it, honey. You did fine—just like I'm sure you're doing fine with that baby of yours. You're doing the best you can and that's all you can do. When you're able to accept that, you'll do even better because you'll let yourself do better." Laura didn't ask where all that had come from; she just knew she'd needed to hear it.

"I wish I knew how to do that."

Mary Mae squeezed Laura's hand. "You'll learn. That's all life is anyway, learning as you go." The elder woman sat the empty mixing bowl aside to bring out the cream. "Do you want cream with your scones?"

"Not today. I think we'll be keyed up enough on the icing alone."

"I'll take a sugar high over a dark fit any day."

"You know what? Me, too." Laura waited for Mary Mae to mete out the two buns and two scones.

"Enjoy the sweets, every one is made with love."

Laura gave a watery smile and heartfelt, "Thank you, Mary Mae."

"No problem at all. Help yourself to some fruit. It'll alleviate some of the guilt."

Laura snickered, shaking her head, and did just that.

Nikolas was giving the last warning sniff that preceded his morning wake-up as she returned to their room with breakfast. He tripped in the tangled sheets and almost fell off the bed trying to follow his nose.

She caught him by his waist and nudged him straight with her hip. "Whoa there, tiger. No need to fall face first into the feast, there's plenty to go around."

Nik grunted, completely nonverbal as he tended to be before encountering food each morning.

"Come to the table. I'll peel your apples and put on some cartoons."

Nik jumped off the bed with a _thud._ Laura rolled her eyes but couldn't swat him with full hands.

"You know better."

Her son grumbled yet nevertheless scrambled gamely into the chair he'd claimed for his own at their shaky all-purpose round table.

Laura sat the dish of sticky buns and scones farthest from him and the plate of uncut fruit closest. Her attempts to instill healthy eating habits in him were often undone by their fugitive circumstances, where calories, convenience, and cheapness trumped nutritional. _Not to mention, he's been gifted with my insatiable sweet tooth._ Laura supposed he could have gotten worse habits from her; time would tell.

She went right to peeling and slicing the apples and peaches with a Swiss Army she'd picked up out of a secondhand shop in North Carolina when Nik was two. Nik watched with rapt attention as she went about her task, his eyes fairly brimming with fascination at the sleek gadget. He'd wanted one for a long as he'd had hand-eye coordination and Laura had promised him his own when he was old enough to use all of the attachments properly—which, given the beer bottle opener, meant something close to never for a seven-year old.

All done, she nudged the plate toward Nik so that he could help himself. There wasn't much sense in bothering with formal dining in a hotel room and Laura made it a point not to stand on ceremony when it counted. She left to rinse and clean her knife and tucked the thing out of sight on a ball-chain necklace under her shirt. Nikolas was too curious by half for a boy his age; he'd turn the room sideways if he had an inkling she'd leave it where he might reach it.

Laura entered the room right as Nikolas abandoned the fruits for the sweets.

"One, Jeffrey. One for breakfast and one to save for a snack before lunch. The other two are mine to do the same."

Nik pouted, complying in fashion truly befitting Laura's sulkiest adolescent self. She sometimes worried that she didn't see enough of herself in her child and that he was all Cassadine through and through. Not in moments like this.

His fit of pique was assuaged by his first bite of sticky bun whilst Laura's dread doubled. _He never can keep still after a hit of sugar, and he'll eat the second scone the minute I leave._ Laura suddenly had no hope that today would go off without a hitch the way that yesterday had gone so well.

"Sweetie, I need to step out. I'll be back in a minute."

Laura made a split-second decision that she hoped was right. She went back to the kitchen and asked Mary Mae to recommend a good babysitter. Nikolas at his most logical was infinitely obedient and well-behaved; Nikolas on a sugar high was nothing of the sort. He'd be a danger to himself without anyone to moderate him, never more so than if he had to be cooped up as he'd have to remain for at least another day. _Four hundred dollars will have to be enough to move on, I can't do this to him again._ Home wasn't the panacea she'd promised herself; it was a new world of want.

Because of the short notice, Laura got her fourth choice of sitters, a supposedly dependable teenager by the name of Robin Scorpio. Laura experienced a wave of vertigo when the girl answered the phone. _Oh, Robert._

"Hello, my name is Kay Rex. I'm visiting in town with my son and someone recommended you to babysit."

"Oh, yes, hi! I'm Robin, which you probably already know since you're calling. I'd be glad to look after your son if you wouldn't mind me answering a few questions for me."

Laura cleared her throat and made herself comfortable on the edge of the bed. "That's perfectly all right, go ahead."

Nikolas was gleefully recreating an epic cartoon battle between Batman and the Joker using his two favorite action figures, sound effects, stunts and all.

"Okay, first things first. How old is your son and what's his name?"

"Well, his name is Jeffrey and he's been seven for just a couple of weeks now."

"He had a birthday, awww, that's fantastic." Laura could hear the girl making notes. _A meticulous operator. Some things are genetic._

"Is Jeffrey more comfortable going by his full name or is there a nickname he prefers to be called?"

"I guess that would depend on the person. Try both and see, I guess." Laura played with the phone cord out of nervous habit.

"Not a problem, I can do that. Does Jeffrey have any severe allergies or chronic illnesses I'll need to watch out for? Is he allergic to any foods?"

"He doesn't do well with the outdoors this time of year, so I try to keep him in as much as possible. He tends to get hayfever and his pollen sensitivity keeps the park from being much fun around his birthday. And no for food allergies." One of these things was true and the other was not. Nikolas was as hearty a boy as they came, but ragweed could lay him especially low in dire days of autumn.

"Then, we can stay inside, that's not any trouble. Are there any board games your son especially likes to play? I have a collection at home, I can bring them with me if you haven't got any."

"All of them," Laura giggled. "Ni—Jeff likes his games. Just be prepared to lose because he's very good."

Robin laughed, too. "I'll try my best. You never know the strength of your ego until you've been beaten by a first grader at a game for fourth graders."

"Tell me something I don't know." Laura allowed herself to relax a bit. _This is Robert's daughter, who could be better?_

"Okay, so I've got Jeffrey who just made seven; hayfever and pollen sensitivity, so no park; loves all sorts of games and, by the background noise, I'd guess Batman. Anything else?"

Laura licked her lips, weighing the necessity of what she was about to say. _I have to tell her, it isn't fair if I don't._ "Just one other thing, Robin. This is very important, so please listen carefully. Robin, Mr. Rex and I are divorced and it wasn't an easy breakup. I have custody of our son, full custody, and he's never been happy about that. Since we're only visiting Port Charles, he shouldn't know we're in town. I say all this to tell you that if a man comes to our place asking after my son specifically, do not open the door, do not let him in, you cannot trust him. But most of all, no matter how convincing he may be, do not give him Jeffrey. If you try, Jeffrey will run away as I've instructed him to do. I advise you to do the same if you find yourself in that situation."

"Is your ex-husband dangerous, Mrs.—Ms. Rex?"

Laura tucked an arm around herself. "He can be."

The line went silent for a long moment, leaving Laura to worry that she'd frightened off her only hope of working for the day. _Not that I'd blame her._ Maybe Laura _was_ putting them all at risk to make a buck.

"He wouldn't hurt Jeff, would he?"

"I hope not, but I can't promise that. That's why he and I aren't together now, among other reasons." Laura unwound the phone cord from her finger. "Can I still count on you to watch my son?"

"Of course! Yes, I'll absolutely watch your son. I'll keep him inside. We'll have just as much fun inside anyway. You're staying at Mary Mae's B&B, right?" At Laura's uneasy silence, the girl rushed to fill it. "She called me first to tell me you were in a bind. I've checked my schedule and everything. I'm not missing anything."

"You should be in school." _I'm supporting the delinquency of a minor; this is what my life has come to._

"I'm ahead in class, Ms. Rex, I promise you have nothing to feel guilty about. Everything will be okay."

Laura began to pick at the embroidering of the bed sheets. "At least bring a textbook to read so I won't feel completely awful."

"I can do that. Maybe Jeffrey and I can learn about the Kreb's Cycle together."

"He'd love that. He soaks up knowledge like a sponge." Laura let out a soft, fatalistic breath. _In for a penny, in for a pound. _"You're right, by the way, Mary Mae's is where we're staying."

"Great. I can be there in fifteen minutes, would that be all right?"

"That'd be ideal. Thank you, Robin."

"It's nothing. See you soon!"

The line went silent with a click. Laura hung up her end and gave her drawn face a rub.

"You're going to have company today."

Nikolas paused in his play to scrunch his face up in question. "Who? Is it Mrs. Ward? She makes yummy scones."

"I think so, too! They're the best I've had since St. Louis and those were pretty outstanding, don't ya think?"

Nik dimpled as he drove his toys to box in a circle. Her little boy's internal world was one so rich in detail, she was in constant battle to draw him outside of it.

"You know, Mrs. Ward says you can call her Mae Mae if you want. She's not scary or bad that I can see; she's sort of like Gilda, she just wants you to feel at home."

Nikolas's miniature championship fight timed-out. "Promise?"

Laura raised her right hand. "Cross my heart."

"Okay," Nik acquiesced, reluctance weighing down his mouth. "Is Mae Mae gonna stay with me?"

"Not Mae Mae. She's very busy taking care of the B&B throughout the day, but she recommended a very nice girl from the neighborhood named Robin Scorpio and that's who's going to watch you until I get home."

Nik abandoned his dramatic reenactment outright to crawl to his knees. "But why? What'd I do?"

Laura moved to the end of the bed where he'd been playing. "Oh, no, honey, what makes you say that?"

"I stayed all by myself yesterday and I did what you said. Did I do it wrong?"

The dark clouds gathering above his head were almost visible.

Laura tugged Nikolas up onto the bed next to her. "Honey, you did everything right. I'm the one who got things wrong. I'm so used to you being my partner in crime that I forgot you're still just a little boy and you need things a little boy needs, like someone to make you sandwiches and hold your hand when you cross the street or peel your peaches when I'm not here."

"I do it okay," he replied, his Cassadine pride sorely wounded.

"Sweetheart, you do it too well. Let mama take care of you like you take care of yourself. That's my job."

He hugged his arms around his middle and kicked his feet against the edge of the bed. "She won't do it like you."

"No, but I bet she'll do okay, too, and if we don't like how Robin does things, we'll pick someone new for tomorrow if we have to. But I bet we won't have to. Today's probably mama's last day at work, then we can go up north like we talked about."

Nikolas bounced in place, his sulk soundly averted. "Are we gonna see Niagara Falls?"

"You bet."

"And visit Saskatchewan?" _Anyone else and I'd be surprised he could even pronounce it. Not my Nikolas._

"I don't think I could find that on a map without a cheat sheet; but yes, we can visit Saskatchewan and Ontario, British Columbia and all the rest if you want. Maybe even Alaska. We'll go everywhere, I promise. Just be good for Robin today, please?"

"Okay, Mama, I'll be good." He returned to his live action entertainment with nary a protest.

_Domestic peace restored._

Laura was free to dress for her day and did so after seeing Nikolas to a quick bath and date with his Transformers toothbrush and paste. She had just successfully wrangled her reddish bob into a stalemate when there was a knock at the door. Laura affected one last dash around the room to shove stray clothes and toys into the closet before she answered the door wearing what she hoped was a welcoming grin.

"Hi, Ms. Rex!"

The girl standing in the hall made being petite into an art form. She was chin-height to Laura with dark hair and eyes and a smattering of faint freckles on her nose. She looked ten to Laura's almost thirty.

"Oh, boy."

"I know what you're thinking."

"I bet you do." Laura imagined she wasn't the first parent to have this reaction.

"I'm older than I look."

"Let me guess. Twenty?"

Robin shrugged, displaying a self-confident smirk Laura knew entirely too well. "I'm thirteen, but I've been babysitting since I was eleven. I may look young, but I'm very responsible and very mature for my age."

Laura made a valiant effort not to recall what trouble those very words had gotten a young Laura Webber into as an adolescent.

"Because I am on the verge of being very late for work, I'm going to take your word for it. Jeffrey, come meet Robin Scorpio."

Nik trotted over and offered the young woman his hand as he'd been brought up to do. He was a font of pristine manners when Laura could be bothered to enforce them as they'd been foisted upon her.

"Hi, Jeff."

"Hi."

Robin held up a bulging knapsack evidently chockfull of board games aplenty. "I brought Trouble. Wanna play?"

Nik grinned. "Yes, please." Robin lowered the bag to the floor to let Nikolas dig in.

"Awesome. Ms. Rex, I can take it from here if you have to go. I know when Mary Mae serves the meals and I have my books to study if Jeff falls asleep. We'll be okay."

Laura was starting to get the impression she was the interloper here. "Okay, I get it. Just one last thing. If you need me, I'll be canvassing, but call City Hall and ask for me if anything comes up, or even if something just feels wrong. I trust your instincts, Robin, so should you."

Robin nodded, all self-assurance. "Yes, ma'am. I've always been taught to trust my gut. I won't stop now."

"That's very reassuring." And it was, oddly enough. It must have been that little bit of familiarity in a setting so foreign that it was close to normal after all. Laura was willing to take it if it got her through the day. Laura mussed Nik's hair one last time and left their room with the hiss and snick of the door. _I hope I don't regret this. Keep an eye on them, Stefan, Mom. I'm counting on you._

Laura faced the day with some little courage and a pair of worn-in boots. She didn't have much of a plan, but Plan B was already _run._ She'd walked out of much less solid plans alive.


	4. Chapter 4

Goose pimples pricked on Laura's skin when she entered the fourth floor today. Anonymous glares were no longer the source of her unease. There was a well-turned out woman seated with a clipboard in the farthest corner of the room who'd also raised a brow at Laura's entrance. She was dressed in inconspicuous garb like the rest of the women present: flats, slacks, and an oddly sleek blouse; a padded blue blazer to offset the fall's brisk temperature. Laura had played nursemaid and barmaid and housekeeper to twenty of her like if she'd met a one and not one of them would be seen in search of day labor. Call it intuition, call it bald prejudice, but Laura _knew_ this woman was a hair too refined for a woman going without. _She shouldn't be here._

Laura made quick work of collecting her team's street assignments for the day, lingering much less than she might have at newly familiar faces. They'd have to get together at lunch.

The day sped by at ludicrous speed after Laura's jarring morning encounter. If there was one thing to be said for the drudgery of census-taking, it was that making friends was easy when you spent long hours trawling the streets with the same two strangers. Being with them was a comfort against the itching sensation that she was being watched. She couldn't beat the feeling, no matter where she turned. It was only at the close of day that the peculiar feeling abated. The relief of it made everything brighter and the worst of census work the best part.

**…**

Laura and Donna were falling over laughing at Evan's latest census horror tale on the trek back to City Hall. A mother of three had offered him a 'personal tour' of the family's new breakfast nook while her kids made like hobgoblins in the den. They had noshed on a course of Cheerios and juice boxes.

"Not exactly champagne and caviar, huh, Van," Donna prodded with an enormous grin.

"Believe it or not, it's the best offered I've gotten in a while."

The ladies shared a scandalized look.

"That settles it, Evan, we're going to have to set you up on a date. You're not the pool boy, you deserve better than this."

"I've got two kids under ten, Kay; trust me, this is about all I can manage."

"Oh, honey," Laura and Donna intoned in wry synchrony.

_And I thought my track record was poor._ Evan had the benefit of not marrying a psychopath, though, which had to count for something. He had been widowed, too, and he was quick running short of ways to mitigate the loss.

"Same time tomorrow, ladies?"

Laura pulled a face. "Afraid not. I'm about ready to dessert this little city for good."

"Aww, not already. I was just getting used to those coke-bottle glasses of yours." Donna was by far the chicest of the three of the trio.

"I'm a rolling stone and it's time for me to roll. But who knows where we might run into each other? It's such a small world."

Donna dragged Laura into a viciously sweet hug. "Damn it, Bold & Bespectacled, I miss you already."

Evan mimicked Donna's embrace with a lighter touch and a kiss on both cheeks. "Try not to fall asleep on any strangers at your next stop. They probably won't be as keen on you as us."

"Or they might be too keen," Donna murmured _sotto voce._

"Hush, you. _Try_ to stay out of trouble. Van, it might be up to you, I think this one's hopeless."

"Rude, B&B. You're too rude." Donna gave Laura's hands a last squeeze. "I hope you find what you're looking for, sugar, because you're looking damned hard."

"You can tell around the squinting?" Evan muttered more than loud enough for Laura to catch.

Laura whacked him one good time. "Get out of here, both of you. I'm sure you've got to spend your ill-gotten gains before tomorrow."

Donna blew her a kiss. "You better believe it. Liquor and ladies of the night, that's how we do it."

Evan whistled. "I'll have what she's having."

Laura waved at them both as they departed in the direction of the bus stop. She wished she could be sure she'd see them again. A world made small in hiding becomes infinitely larger when trying to find old friends. _I don't even know their last names._ She knew they were already lost to her.

Laura was all set to head out for the afternoon when the mayor's motorcade arrived outside City Hall, led by officers on motorcycles making way for the limousine and its flag-bearing antennae, boasting the seal of the City of Port Charles. It was only shock that kept Laura in place. Good sense would have made her run. She'd been in town for days and hadn't run into him, but this was City Hall—this was _his_ office; of course, she'd see him here. The odds were against her all along.

The limousine halted to deliver the city's foremost authority and his entourage of essentials and auxiliary staff. The end-of-day bustle parted like an obedient sea and Laura with them. She averted her eyes from the lanky man at the center of the pack of press and political hangers-on passing her on the way to the front steps of City Hall. There was another ELQ Industries scandal breaking, according to what Laura had read in the paper. _Never a dull moment for the Quartermaines._ She would have liked to visit Lila Quartermaine were her situation not so dreary. _Some other year perhaps._

Laura's thoughts didn't linger with Lila for long, reality had caught up with her. It was one thing to hear tale; it's another thing entirely to see the truth with her own two eyes.

Lucas Lorenzo Spencer was mayor of Port Charles. Her husband, her man the philosopher had become a servant of the people in her absence and was heading into his final year in office.

He poured on the charm for the assembled full-court press, his smile all a-gleam. _Like some big movie star_. Her lost boy had become a phenomenal man without her.

"Listen up, you bunch of jackals. I have news. The best of news. I don't know if you've been informed, but I'm in love. I'm in love, love, love with the woman of my dreams. Come on out, English!"

A beautiful woman with dark curly hair and arresting eyes stepped out of shadows to take Luke's proffered hand, positively beaming at him.

"As you all know, this fantastic woman has been by my side through life and through death, for political doldrums and electoral victory, and she hasn't run away yet! Now, I'm not gonna let her. Port Charles, this woman, Miss Holly Sutton Scorpio, has consented be my wife—again!"

The press broke out in raucous applause for the couple who commemorated their announcement with a tender kiss.

"You're making me the happiest man there is, English."

"I serve at the pleasure of the mayor, Mr. Mayor."

"I like the sound of that." They rested their brows together wearing matching grins that nearly split their faces in two.

_They make for a striking couple, _Laura acknowledged, slumping under the revelation that Luke had once shined at her alone with such devotion. She twisted her purse in her hands, fighting the gut instinct shouting at her to go because she wanted to look at this man, her man, one more time. _I won't come back, I can't, not with nothing left waiting._ This was their curtain call and the end of what they'd had, the legend of them. _This is how Port Charles forgets._ And so Laura would let them be forgotten. _Like all love stories, that die with those who lived them._

Laura's eyes wandered from the happy couple to their assembled associates, among them one Robert Scorpio. That chestnut hair of his was going distinctly, roguishly grey at the temples, nonetheless his eyes remained stubbornly keen and they'd set sights on her. Laura fingered her specs, unnerved. Running away from the scene now that she'd been spotted would have drawn Robert's attention right off, so she stayed and ignored the distressed churning of tuna salad sandwich in her stomach which worsened as the press conference continued. _I can do this. I've lived through hell. This won't kill me._ She persevered.

Her fingers were a bloodless shade of pale when all was said and done. Her knees were locked in place to keep from melting out from under her and depositing her, heartsick and all, on the cracked pavement. She thought she might be ill. No, she knew she would be, but not here.

Luke's presser adjourned twenty minutes after it began and Laura was free to depart with the rest of the viewing public, difficult as it was to do. Bullheaded determination turned her body and worked her legs where reluctance set in. This was right, going was right; that didn't make it easy.

"Excuse me, Miss, I think you dropped this."

Laura flinched back from the hand that rose to catch her elbow, rounding quickly on the culprit to put an arm's length between his body and hers.

It was none other than the gentleman of the hour. He had donned a pair of reflective shades to combat the harsh sun of approaching winter, but he took them off on the spot, raising his hands in an effort to placate her. His actions had the opposite effect. Laura pulse skyrocketed in terror at the possibility of being recognized.

"Sorry about that, I didn't mean to startle you. I just wanted to give this back to you." He waved a bit of plastic about that Laura was at a loss to identify in her panic and poor spectacles. Luke smiled that particular smile at her helpless squinting. "It's your driver's license. You must have dropped it out of your bag a minute ago. I didn't want you leaving without it. They're a hassle to replace."

Laura twisted her mouth as pleasantly as mortification permitted, taking the blasted thing and proceeding to lose hold of it immediately after. She groaned a nasally, horror-stricken groan and bent to retrieve it as Luke did the same. Laura gave up the gambit first, coming just shy of the brush of his hand. She knew now what she could survive; horror, torture, and the deep blue sea, but losing him having had the casual intimacy of his touch restored could be her downfall. _I can't, I can't._ But how she longed to try.

Luke graciously offered her card a second time and Laura took great pain in zipping it securely inside her purse.

She breathed deep and spoke through her nose, "Thanks a lot." She sounded horrific to her own ears.

Luke doffed his invisible cowboy hat and gave a courtly bow. "All in a day's work, ma'am. You have a good one." He was all sideshow, her—no, Holly's fiancé, Holly's Luke from here on out.

"You, too. You have the very best one."

Laura permitted herself a last gander at those electric blues. She felt she deserved that much if she wouldn't see them for a lifetime more. _God, how I love you._

Brimming with all the strength of that love, she nudged her unsightly eyeglasses up the bridge of her nose and turned away. _Goodbye, Luke Spencer._

Laura used to believe that time had healed over the deepest of her hurts, that new cruelties had left her skin immune to the sting of wounds made scars. She realized now she had been wrong. She couldn't have been any more wrong if she'd meant to tell herself a hugged her purse to her chest and left City Hall once and for all. There wasn't anything for her there anymore.

_Goodbye, us._


	5. Chapter 5

They'd be leaving in the morning. Laura had decided on her lonely bus ride to Wyndham's that she and Nikolas had spent long enough haunting Laura's old stomping grounds. It was time for Laura to own up to the life she'd chosen when she sailed off into the wild blue yonder with only a basketful of muffins and her infant son to see her through. If she hadn't been saved in two years as a Cassadine captive, no one would come sprinting to her rescue now that life on the lam had gotten nigh on impossible.

_We're no more lost than we've ever been, just a little demoralized. We can start over in Canada. We will start over, just me and Nik. We'll be alright. I'll take care of us._

Laura made quick work of the department store, striding past evening gowns with her eyes on the polished showroom floor, not daring a glimpse at men's tuxedos. She snagged socks, underwear, jeans, and new sneakers for each of them, at last grabbing Batman backpack for Nikolas on her way to the checkout counter.

She made a detour at the ladies' room to change, so desperate was she to put some distance between the woman who'd said goodbye to Luke Spencer and the woman she was choosing to become next. The wig and glasses she kept for the bus ride back, but she shoved the day's garments as deep into her shopping bags as they'd go without ripping clear through.

The bus route to the docks near Royal Street felt as long as the Silk Road. _Isn't that always the way?_ Leaving was a fragile process that involved carefully unwinding oneself from a painstakingly created life. Too fast and you'd draw excessive attention from all comers, too slow and the past was bound to catch up before you made it out. _I'd know._

Upon arriving at her destination, Laura gathered her shopping and hopped off the bus, her mind occupied to distraction with a list of things to be done before the night was through. _Pack, bathe, clean, find a wig shop—another trip to Wyndham's? Bus tickets or plane? Not enough saved for a cash car. Cabs are conspicuous and costly._ Sleeping was all she wouldn't have time for.

A tickle in back of her throat diverted Laura from her to-do list. The air smelt wrong and not merely because she was so close to the docks. She'd grown accustomed to the reek of fish out of the sound; this was something worse…something deadly. This was the heady, choking smell of smoke. _Something's burning._

Laura's direst maternal imaginings had featured Robin and Nikolas burning Mary Mae's to a cinder on a mischievous tear; yet she'd never actually _believed_ those visions spurred on by latent dread and fed by innumerable loss. Until now, that is. From the bus stop just inland of the docks, Laura could see phosphorescent flames licking at the darkening sky above the bed & breakfast where she and her only child had laid their heads for the past two nights. Laura didn't have to guess, she knew.

Dropping her shopping bags to fall where they would, Laura drew her purse strap over her head and across her waist to keep it secure and took off from the docks at a dead run.

The engulfed B&B was visible from a block away, police cruisers roaring in to hold back the crowd and dispel good Samaritans from trying to be too brave. Laura forgot about Robert Scorpio squinting at her too closely, she forgot about Luke Spencer and those damned blue eyes of his. She forgot everything except for one simple fact: _Nikolas is in that building._ Laura lunged through the crowd, bodily shoving anyone too slow to move when she asked. The wood cordons were shoved aside just as readily.

She dodged the two uniformed cops and hose-bearing firefighter who tried to snatch her up. Years of outrunning hired guns had made her spry. Every muscle of her body would be sore and tight with it by tomorrow, a more than fair trade in her view if her son was there to meet the new sunrise.

Laura ran up the front steps and into the front door of the B&B knowing it might be too late. Too late didn't matter, quitting mattered, leaving Nikolas, Nikolas _and_ Robin, alone to die mattered. Laura had a duty as a mother and a friend not to give up, not without a fight. She hadn't given up on her baby boy when the easiest choice would have been to leave him, she couldn't now.

The building's second story creaked like rattling bones overhead and Laura still ran upstairs, ducking a falling support beam that went down in flames and dodging paintings plummeting from the walls with popped hanging wires.

"Nikolas! Nikky, can you hear me?" Laura made it to their room in time to hear glass shatter behind the locked door. "Nikolas! Honey, can you hear me?" She didn't hear an answer, only the echo of more glass buckling in the face of ever more scorching temperatures. "Nik! It's mama, sweetheart, please, answer me." Nothing, only the sound of her world crashing down around her.

Laura dug her key out of her back to unlock the door, but she had to leap back when the knob scalded her at a single touch.

"Damn it, damn it!" She went back to rattling the door on its hinges. "Robin, can you hear me. It's Mrs. Rex, please, open the door. Come outside where it's safe." Laura thumped her head on the unmoving door, oblivious to the paint beginning to churn and bubble. She began to gasp and cough at the pervasive smoke pouring from underneath the door and throughout the hall, much thicker here than dockside. "Come on, kids, come out." The hall had turned into an oven and she was feeling the pernicious burn every place her skin was bare, whereas everywhere else felt swaddled in smoldering wool.

Laura slid down to the hall rug, under the smoke yet not unmarred by its influence. Fire was eating away at the wall opposite her, devouring paintings and wallpaper, decimating an aloe hanging plant, irony of ironies. Laura's sight was going dim and fuzzy at the edges. _Where's it's not burnt orange, yellow, and red, anyhow._ She was breathless and choking and maybe just a little bit relieved. She took an unadvisable deep breath, trying to fill her lungs, and her mind flashed to that beautiful cove in hell. _Will we meet there, the three of us?_ Optimism had deserted Laura, as had faith, but just maybe.

_No more running from Stavros, what could be better than that?_ She imagined the island that had brought her life to a merciless halt once only to gift her with the start of something miraculously, splendidly new. _Joy may be found in the darkest corners of the earth. Mine was._

Laura listlessly wrenched off her smoldering wig and tossed it into the distance where it was immediately consumed in the remains of the staircase. She hurled away her ill-suited glasses as well, not that it made any credible difference. She chanced shedding her contact lenses with sooty, smeared hands, figuring she may as well die as the woman she was born. This left her blinking at the nearing inferno that had sworn to lay waste to this house Laura had loved at first sight. _I'm sorry, Mary Mae. I'm so sorry._ Her friend's livelihood was to become yet another victim of the Cassadines' relentless war against her. _Please, be okay._

Laura knew she ought to get up and fight her way out of here. Nikolas would want her to survive, Stefan and Luke would want that, only Laura wasn't sure _she_ wanted that anymore. Absent her son, the war would end; absent her son, so might she.

Before Laura had made her choice one way or another, the wooden doorframe of her door split with a great roaring crack, unseating the lock and heaving Laura backwards into the room to land in a stunned heap on the carpet. Laura gagged on an unexpected surge of fresh air, shuddered where a brusque gale met her reddened flesh.

The room was a mess although she'd left it nearly pristine. Heavy smoke muddied the air and rendered the uppermost walls invisible from Laura's position supine on the ground. Discarded games littered the floor in front of the TV, the bed was unmade and aflame; the phone had been ripped out from the wall and the table lay nearly inverted, the food from this morning trampled and seething on the floor. The window stood both shattered and open at once.

_Why is it open _and_ broken?_

Laura didn't have time to wonder as an explosion rocked what remained of the B&B. The fresh air was feeding the flames, a meal for a monster. Sirens sounded outside to herald the arrival of still more firefighters, but Laura wondered if it wasn't already too late. There was no Robin and no Nikolas, only there _had_ been.

"Where are they?"

Mind awhirl, Laura reached under the bed to retrieve their ready-go-bag, only just avoiding a harsh burn by the melting polyester throw blankets. Nikolas was already out, which meant he'd need her. Laura was in the same boat, she needed him, too. There wasn't another moment to lose.

"It _is_ you," declared the only voice Laura would have wanted to hear once upon a time. She didn't let herself get caught in that voice this time, she couldn't.

Laura launched herself toward the window when what sounded like the boiler started to blow.

"Out the window. We have to go out the window."

"You're telling me, the front door's a wash."

Laura skipped out right leg and head first, stumbling on the ground that was a couple of meters farther south than she'd foreseen. Daddy Longlegs followed her, all legs and permed hair in a suit. She heard him meet the grass as one last conflagration sent her careening into Mary Mae's white garden gate.

For three seconds, Laura thought she'd died.

In the first, she saw her second husband.

In the second, her third love.

And, in the third, her son.

Laura's end was called into question at second four when a rangy politician in pressed wool appeared overhead to cover her against flying debris. _Catching would have been better_, she decided. The landing had hurt more than any winged plank of burning wood could, in her expert opinion.

Warm hands swept her hair from her face. _Remember how I used to love those hands? _She was remembering everything she'd forced herself to forget in the name of moving on.

"Laura, honey, you in there?"

" 'M fine. 'M okay." _Hurts._ Her bruises would be sporting bruises.

"I don't think so. I'm gonna get the paramedics to come check you out. Just don't you go anywhere. I mean it, Laura, you stay right here." He got up, then kneeled right back down in the dirt beside her. "I knew when you looked at me. You looked at me like you knew me, but I couldn't see past those damned bifocals. I should have seen. I see now. Don't you go anywhere, all right? You and me, we've got a lot of talking to do."

Laura wasn't in any state to be making promises; still, Luke must have taken her at her lack of protest because he sprinted round the collapsing B&B to where the fireman were doing their level best to control the blaze. Laura watched him disappear from sight like a dream lost. She wasn't sniffing from the smog straining her lungs when she rolled onto her knees. _I have someplace to be, I waited too long._

Laura ripped into their go-bag to find the weapon they didn't travel a mile without. The small handgun was ideal for Laura's small hands and fit easily into the ankle of her boot. She'd bought it from the same shop as her army knife.

Steering clear as possible of the immolating building, Laura made her back to where the sadomasochistic crowd of onlookers still gathered on the street. She saw twice as many as there must have been from her doubled vision. Her trek was made more difficult by the fulminating flower blossoms in the flowerbeds and a melting trellis parting ways from the house's wrecked siding. Laura's head swam on leapfrogging out of its fiery path.

She was standing by sheer force of will.

"Mama! Mama!" Laura could hear a child crying amid the spectators. That wasn't just any child, though, that was her child, her Nikolas.

She spun quicker than her woozy head could quite stand, but she didn't fall. "Sweetheart. Honey, where are you? Robin? Jeff?"

Right from under the crowd, a little firecracker of a boy zipped under the cordons to fly into Laura's arms. He was all of fifty-five pounds and every ounce was loved.

"Oh, god, honey, is it you? Is it you, _mily_?"

Nikolas buried his head in her shoulder, clinging with all his might. Laura held on, too.

"The bad people came, Mama. They came and yelled at the door and tried to get in. Mae Mae yelled to make them go away and they hurt her and then made everything on fire." He was speaking in rushed, backwards paragraphs at a mile a moment, his eyes wild and terrified as he'd ever been in his life. "Then, they threw a rock in the window and when Robin tried to throw it back, it went boom and made everything burn."

Robin appeared out the pedestrian crush in front of Laura and Nikolas, her face awash in soot and dirt and her once-neat skirt covered in the same. She was cradling a bloodied hand. "You were right, you were right. Somebody came to take Rex away. I didn't think they'd com, but they did almost as soon as you left."

"Did you call anyone? Robin, does anyone else know they're here?"

"I don't know. I called, but I couldn't get through. The phone went dead and I was too scared to take Rex outside in case they were waiting out there. Mary Mae didn't bring lunch, so we knew something bad must have happened. We were trapped and nobody was coming for us. When they threw the cherry bomb through the window and the bed caught fire, I knew we had to take our chances. I had Rex put on his anorak and climb out with me. By the time we made it outside, there wasn't anybody there. I didn't know they had set the whole place on fire, Ms. Rex. I swear." Robin was on the verge of hysteria in her guilt. _Probably shock, too._

Laura pulled the girl to her side. "It's okay, Robin. Calm down. None of this was your fault. Not what happened to you or Mary Mae. This was my ex-husband and he will have to pay for what he's done, please believe me that he will. But right now, I need you to find your father and stay with him. Being here isn't safe, being near us isn't safe and I'm so sorry I dragged you into this. You will be safe again and _feel_ safe again. I promise you that. Now, go, go and find Robert."

Robin sniffed, visibly working to pull herself together. "You know my dad?"

"Very well. And if he's anything like I remember, he's on his way to you right now. You're a lucky girl. Go, Robin."

With a last uncertain look at the two of them, Robin went.

Laura took this as her cue for them to flee the scene. Luke be damned, Laura and Nikolas needed to get out of Port Charles as soon as possible. _They've found us, Stavros is coming._

"We have to go, Nikky," she murmured to her son as they slipped away. "We have to get out of here. I thought Port Charles was safe for us. I was wrong and I'm so sorry this happened. I'm sorry you lost your Action Man and your toothbrush. I'll get you another one. I know it won't be the same, not like before, but it's the best I can do. We'll go to British Columbia. What do you think about that? We'll start a diner and make pancakes all day long and churn our own butter and have a big house where nobody can find us. Won't that be great?"

Nikolas didn't respond, only burrowed his head deeper into her neck. Laura was talking enough for two and carried on. Sunset in full effect, Laura screwed up her eyes ineffectually against the gloom that crept in before the street lights switched on. Only the flames lit their way.

"We won't come here again. There's nothing here for us. But I thought…I thought just a little while, there might be. Mama was wrong, she was wrong and that shouldn't have happened. I'll do better for us, I have to do better," she was telling herself as much as Nikolas. Police cars were still coming, the neighbors were pouring onto their porches and out onto the street to see what had become of Mary Mae's prized B&B. Laura just wanted to hide.

The smell of burned toys and singed hair trailing behind them made her want to be sick. The heady cologne of the man starting to give chase was strong enough to leave her in tears. It was lucky, then, that she was all cried out.

"Laura."

She kept walking.

_He isn't one to give up that easily_.

"Laura. Laura, where are you going?" He skipped forward and ambled backwards in front of her, trying to catch her eyes. She went right on avoiding his.

_Let this go, just let this lie._

"Away, obviously. I'm going away." She rounded him and picked up the pace. Luke didn't lose a step doing the same. Nikolas held on.

"What the hell for? What hell is going on here? Who's after you?" Luke resorted to trotting alongside her.

Laura didn't answer. She couldn't, the story would take years and most of it would be told in silence. She just couldn't say.

"I know you know. It's written all over you. Come on, honey, talk to me. Let me help."

Laura drew Nikolas even closer. He was getting too big to carry. "You can't help. There's nothing you can do. Just accept that. Don't worry, you'll never see me again." She turned on dime, intending to dart across the deserted end of the street toward the bus station. Luke must have read her intentions, because he grabbed her arm to stop her just in time to pull her out of the path of a darkened taxi slamming past. Laura's heart hammered; she knew that had been no accident. Luke wasn't fool enough to believe it was, either.

"You're not going anywhere, not until I know what the deal is."

"Simple. You thought I died but I didn't. I'm alive and leaving town right now. That's all."

The flashing emergency lights painted the block unnatural colors, transforming the quaint skyline into a kind of grotesque incandescent sideshow, fitting tribute to the Greek tragedy the day seemed set to become.

"Where've you been all this time?"

"Far away. As far as I mean to get from here right now."

"Not keyed up like this, you're not. You can barely see straight after that thump you got on the head and I bet Junior here would like to use his own two feet for this one. Whatta ya say, kiddo?"

Nikolas had wrapped himself tight around Laura. He was getting big, going arms and legs to her petite frame, but she could still carry him, so she would and he'd let her. He didn't respond to Luke, but his shaky breath against her neck was answer enough.

"I don't know what your story is—and you'd best believe I wanna know—but I can't let you go like this. I won't. Come with me, I'll take you someplace you can keep your head down for a few hours, help you lose the tail in that taxi that nearly mowed you down."

Laura could hear the faint purring of an idling car and knew exactly who was waiting for her and her son around the next blind corner. _We won't get to the station before they reach us._

"There isn't much time. Is it close? Secure?"

Luke didn't hesitate, he took her hand. "Safe as houses, just you follow me."

Her son, the center of her life, wrapped in her arms, she revisited the past one last time and followed Luke Spencer into the dark.


	6. Chapter 6

Luke led her to, of all places, the Mayor's Mansion. _Oh, hell._

Terror and disbelief and, god help her, nostalgia warred for dominance at her first glimpse of the place she'd married this man.

"What are you doing? What are you thinking bringing us here?" Laura knew Helena would have had someone staking out the mansion if she suspected Laura was in the area. _Oh, god, don't let them take my baby._

"I'm taking you in."

Laura stopped behind him, stunned. _He's turning us in. The Cassadines are here. God, they're here._ Nikolas clung that little bit tighter, but Laura needed him to let go. She needed her little prince to run.

"N—Rex, _širdelė_, get down, okay. I'm getting tired." Which wasn't a complete lie; the smoke had done a number on her lungs; she'd coughed the entire way here.

"No, Mama, no."

He hated when they split up. Such a brave boy to be so young. _Braver than I should have made him. I'm sorry, baby._ Laura hugged him tight for another moment before trying again to prise him loose from her.

"Sweetie, please. For mama?"

Nikolas whimpered yet complied, peeling himself away from her one sticky arm and leg at a time, his sneakered feet leaving muddy prints on her jeans.

"I can carry him if you like."

Laura pasted on a plastic smile, not daring to try meeting his look. "No, that's all right. We're okay. You just lead the way."

Nik dropped to the ground, grabbing hold of her hand to keep them in lock step. Luke threw another look back to make sure they were keeping up. Laura flashed her teeth to bury her terror under charm. Her hand and Nik's turned clammy together, sweating with fear, making them have to work twice as hard to hold on. The irony wasn't lost on Laura.

"You remember the rules, don't you?"

"Be fast. Be quiet. Go far."

"Good boy." Laura stroked his pitch black hair. "I love you more than sunshine and moonbeams."

"And cupcakes?"

"Ooh, yes, even more than cupcakes."

"Forever?" Her littlest prince, her boy king without a crown was only a boy then, and she loved her boy.

Laura offered her pinkie and let him lock his tiny finger around hers. "Till the world starts all over again."

She glimpsed at Luke's broad shoulders and his lanky limbs imbued with all that swagger and that hair. He was older than she remembered. _Eight years and he can still turn my head._ Hurting him would be difficult, yet she merely had to remind herself of one thing: _I'd do anything for my son._

"Run."

Nikolas ran. The soles of his worn trainers slapped soundlessly on the concrete till he vanished altogether from Laura's senses. She hadn't been this frightened since Crete circa 1984.

Laura took the revolver from the neck of her boot and pointed it at the man she had once been convinced she would always love.

"No need to go any farther. This is far enough."

Luke glanced back and immediately put his hands in the air.

"_Whoa_, baby, what's the gun about?"

"What's _this_ about?" Laura waved a hand at the mansion in skeletal bloom and the streamers decking the balcony overhead. A Founders' Day celebration, she wagered. Luke would rather die than attend.

"What do you mean?"

"The mansion, Luke. What are you doing taking me back here when you know I've got folks after me?"

"I'm trying to help."

"_Who?!_ Me or the…the people following me? Whose side are you really on?"

"Yours, angel, always yours."

"I'm no angel, and I'm not yours. I haven't been anybody's for a long time."

"I know all that, or at least I figured. You looked so scared, I just wanted to give you someplace safe to go. That's sort of my job nowadays, being that I'm mayor and all."

Laura began to withdraw. The Luke she knew would have given anything to be the biggest man in town, but he was no snake oil salesman in a seersucker suit for all his smooth-talking ways. He was a nomad, a con with more wants than haves. _Who the hell are you anymore?_ She must have stepped into a parallel universe. _I wouldn't put it past Stavros to build a doorway and leave me to stumble through._ Every way she turned felt like a trap in the making, no less the one person she'd never had reason to doubt.

"I have to go. Thank you for trying to help." Laura knew Nikolas' habit of lingering when she'd sent him on his way; she could still catch up to him.

Luke took a step in her direction and got a barrel to the chest for his trouble. "You're leaving. Why?"

"Rex and I are pretty good at disappearing acts. This is right up our alley."

"You saw that black cab, it's not just going away because you took a dozen rights and a left. He's out there, whoever the hell he is, and I'd bet he and his pals have got all the easy ways out of town on lockdown. Come inside, talk to me, get some good food in you, and you can leave at break of day. I'll even help you catch the little tyke playing hide-a-mole in my gardenias."

"We're doing fine."

He looked at her like she was crazy. "Mary Mae's is gone bye-bye. Where ya gonna go? How? There's a target on your back; I can see it, so can anybody else that looks. Let's get Junior and go inside before we draw a crowd." He wiggled an open hand at her. "Come on, darlin', how about it?" He was wheedling her.

And he was right, she was forced to admit.

She slowly lowered her gun till it was pointed down at the sidewalk.

"If you try anything, and I mean anything…."

"You'll blow my head off. Yeah, I get the picture," he griped.

Laura didn't care if that upset him.

Laura was trying very hard not to care.

"You said he's in the gardenias?"

Luke wiggled a finger at her. "_Was_. Our little garden gnome is hiding behind that spruce tree over there." Luke hollered out into the greenery, "Come on back, sport. All-clear."

Nikolas failed to appear.

"You'd best do the honors, I don't think your boy's about to listen to li'l ole me."

Laura kept her eyes fixed on Luke.

"Rex, sweetie, come here. We're going to go inside. We're going to get something to eat and talk to the mayor for a little while." She attempted to sound at ease when he didn't reveal himself right away. "We have to go in, but it's a good thing. It's a good choice. I mean it, Rex. You can trust me."

Another twenty seconds passed before a sculpted hedge rustled and her song shimmied out of it into the open, thorn-nicked and unsure. Nikolas was slow to approach them, as slow as Laura was to finally put her gun away, more to ease her son's anxiety than as a sign of faith.

"Don't make me regret trusting you."

"You won't. Prayers don't get answered often, angel. I won't take this one for granted."

Laura didn't have the first idea how to respond that.

…

Luke was leading Laura and Nikolas into the mansion through a side door, just in case.

"How did you find me? You just showed up out of nowhere. How did you have the first idea where I was when I didn't leave a forwarding address?"

"You listed Beechers Corners as your permanent address right on your license. The name didn't ring a bell, but your face did, so I pulled your records at the Census office and saw you'd listed your parents' old place as your home address. I asked Robert to look into a Kay Rex and he told me Robin was babysitting for a woman by that very name at Mary Mae's. I thought it was too big a coincidence, because I don't get that lucky."

"You survived being punched overboard, you survived carbonic snow, and you survived an avalanche. How much luckier can you get?"

"You know about that?"

"I know just about everything." Stavros had seen to it that Laura was well-informed about all she was missing back home.

"That makes one of us."

Laura shrugged, picking bits of crumbling leaves off Nik's sweater to avoid talking about her lost years. _That's why they're called 'lost.'_

Luke cleared his throat. "Tell you what, it's almost dinnertime. Lionel—that's our cook, the best dam…uh, danged cook in upstate New York. He usually cooks for two, but I can have him whip up something extra special for you and Junior. How about it?"

"That's okay. I can get us something if Rex gets hungry later." Never mind that her son hadn't eaten since breakfast and had the appetite of a Great Dane, Laura still wasn't convinced she'd made the right call following Luke here. She didn't intend to make any lasting commitments, not even to a meal.

"Come on, honey, don't be stubborn, it's free food. Eat up! You look like you could do with a good meal."

Laura glared. "I'm fine."

"You're half-starved."

_Says the human beanpole! _"Diet and exercise," she deadpanned.

"Census work must be the new Atkins. Who knew?"

"Don't start this. I'm here because you brought me here. If my presence is upsetting you, I'm happy to get us out of your hair."

"Hold on a minute, no need to get all riled up. I'm just saying, you should eat. We should probably see about getting you to a doctor, too. That head-on collision with the fence must have done a number on that noggin."

"I'm fine. I made it here, didn't I?"

"I'd still feel better if you let somebody take a look at you."

Laura didn't like having her arm twisted. "No."

"Laura." His tone was faintly warning. Hers wasn't anything approaching faint.

"You can either show me to the kitchen or you can show us to the door. No doctor."

"You could be really hurt and not even know it."

"I'll have to take my chances."

"The kid deserves better."

Laura's head hurt—Laura's _heart_ hurt, and she just wasn't up to being bossed around by the person responsible for at least one of those pains.

"Kitchen. Where is it?"

Luke grunted, a quick cut of his eyes towards Nikolas making it exceedingly clear that it was only her son's presence that kept him from speaking his peace.

"Right through there. Help yourselves."

Right as Nik and Laura were about to go in a mustachioed man in a white chef's coat and hat stepped out, stopping short at the sight of them all. Laura smiled benignly. Luke rolled his eyes.

"Er, dinner is served?" the poor chef announced.

"Yeah, yeah, let's get on with it." Luke turned to go, Laura supposed, to the dining room where fiancée awaited, only to turn back. "You're welcome to join us. You're not prisoners or anybody's dirty little secret. We're damn near family."

Laura thumbed the shoulders of Nik's knitted sweater. She knew what was what and what was real. She knew what year it was and where she belonged, and most of all where she didn't.

"Give my best to Holly. I mean, _our_ best."

Luke spent a moment reading her expression and whatever he saw he seemed to understand, because he nodded. "I'll do that." Then, he left with his chef and Laura and Nikolas were alone. _Same as always._

"What do you say we raid the pantry?"

Nikolas leaned his head back to peer up at her, assessing in that unnerving way his father in heart had been. He grinned. "Yeah!"

"All right. Let's go."

Laura led her son into the kitchen and told herself it was reprieve enough for the night. Port Charles might have one more miracle in it for Laura: just a little more time.

…

After shooing Nikolas away from the baking chocolate and marshmallows, Laura set to making a light meal of sandwiches for her and Nik after dinner had been served to Holly and Luke. _In Luke's kitchen, the _mayor's_ kitchen. I'm in another world._

Luke loped in from the dining room to hop up onto the countertop where Laura was working. He didn't have much to say at the start, making a silent menace of himself, swiping slices of wonder bread and dipping renegade fingers in the jar of extra-creamy Jiff when Laura's head was down. She rapped his knuckles with the handle-end of a butter knife when she caught him at it.

"Yowch!" Luke yelped and shook out the sting of the blow. "Damn it, woman, it's peanut butter, not Iberian ham; you don't have to be so mean about it, there's plenty enough to go around."

"You just ate a full meal, I saw you—still don't know where put it at all," Laura finished more to herself than him. He was a whippet in shirtsleeves.

"What can I say, I'm a growing boy who needs his calories."

"Like a heart attack. You're not as young as you used to be, you know, you have to be more careful."

"Thank you for that, Dr. 'Glass Half-Empty, Cracked, and Probably Filthy.'"

"It's just an observation." Laura hadn't swallowed back her laugh quick enough. He was hot on the trail of it, leaning in close.

"I'll have you know I'm as spry as I was the day you met me."

"And up to just about as much scheming, I bet."

"Even politicians gotta have a hobby, babycakes." Luke swung his skinny legs against the side of the counter in time to a waltz. _One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three._ Like he was remembering their wedding dance or Wyndham's.

Laura made herself forget.

Luke sucked a stubborn bit of peanut butter of his thumb. "Say, I'm supposed to be getting married, did ya hear about that?"

"I heard." She'd been standing right there when they'd made the announcement, she couldn't have missed a word.

"Yeah, I guess you must have." Luke rubbed his hands on his slacks in lieu of a napkin, ignoring Laura's censuring eyebrows as he did. "This all kind of puts a cramp in the happy occasion."

Laura's expression didn't waiver. "It doesn't have to. As far as the world's concerned, I'm already dead. Marry Holly, nobody will know."

"_I'd_ know."

"And you're suddenly Mr. Upstanding Citizen. I forgot about that." Laura was forgetting all manner of irrefutable fact these days.

He narrowed his eyes. "You don't know the first thing about the man I am. I'm starting to wonder if you ever did."

Laura refused to rise to the bait. "I probably didn't. We barely knew each other before we went on the run, I barely even knew myself at that age. Then we were in love and getting married and it didn't seem like it mattered. Nothing but you mattered." Laura scooped out more Jiff than she needed to avoid looking in his direction.

"We were supposed to have the rest of our lives to figure each other out. It was gonna be great." Luke helped himself to another thumbful.

"It was great. The whole five minutes we got to have together were perfection in a bottle. I'm sorry it couldn't last. I hate that it didn't."

Luke gingerly brushed her wrist. "Who took you from me? Who stole you right out of from under my nose?"

"Doesn't matter, not now." Laura wouldn't be responsible for resurrecting the Spencer-Cassadine feud. She would see her son brought up free of it. "What's important now is making sure your future goes to plan. I wasn't planning on staying in town, but I'll stay as long as it takes to sign the divorce papers if you can have your attorney draw some up pretty quick."

Luke withdrew his hand. "I'd appreciate that."

"Consider it done."

_This is really it, then._ Laura hadn't realized she'd still been hoping.

She brought a plate of PB&J and glass of milk out to Nik where he was idling at the unoccupied dining room table. Her growing boy inhaled both in a blink. Laura was much slower in finishing her food. Her hunger had dissipated as it always did when she was confronted with unhappy truths. In the end, she nudged the remaining half of her sandwich over to Luke and escorted Nik to the downstairs bathroom to get cleaned up.

They were back and brainstorming how to spend the remainder of the evening when Luke sidled out of his upstairs office to have a word with them.

"Hey, Junior, why don't you head out back? I think there's something out there that might interest you."

Nikolas cocked his dark brows at their host before turning to his mother for guidance. Laura wasn't wild about letting her son out of sight just yet. Nevertheless, she had made a point of trusting Luke in coming here. Awkwardness aside, he hadn't led them wrong so far.

She nudged Nik toward the hall that she remembered leading to the courtyard. "Come on, let's have a look."

Luke ambled apace, hands in his pockets and grinning like a loon. _Somebody's awfully pleased with himself. _Laura was close to too afraid to ask.

"Do I want to know what's out there?"

"Just something every kid needs."

Laura knew a bit of about parenting after all these years, but her own aberrant childhood left her dangling to respond. She just kept her hand on Nik's back until he reached the French doors that opened outside. She let herself be comforted by the weight of the pistol in her boot.

The three of them stood at the doors, neither Laura nor Nikolas moving to step outside. _Helena's got goons all over. We could be the world's easiest targets._

"Is anybody planning to _open_ these doors or do I have to play doorman, too?"

Laura twisted her lips and stepped forward to do just that. It would give her a chance to take stock of things. _Coming here was a crazy idea. What am I doing?_

The courtyard where she'd married him was in full bloom under cover of night. She could smell the wet grass from the gardeners' fine work and the hedges heaved with birds and critters that went skittering in the night. Nestled not far from the edge of the portico was a tall, sturdy wooden play set. There was a clubhouse with a deep grey metal slide that wound right down to the ground with monkey bars and swings besides. _Exactly what a boy would love. _Nikolas was positively vibrating to go.

"Mama, please, may I go?"

Laura skimmed the encroaching gloom nervously, but she couldn't see her way to refuse. She'd given him so little of the normal things life had to offer, what was an hour's freedom.

"Go on. Just make sure you come straight down if I call for you."

"Yes, ma'am."

He launched himself at the monkey bars with abandon, narrating his performance like a sportscaster, and then leaping from the final rung to pelt toward the swings. He was in seventh heaven. _I love that kid._

Nikolas and Laura weren't usually two to play outside after nightfall—too many blind spots—but she made an exception for her boy tonight. It was a rare day that he got to act like a kid and he was already growing up so fast; after what had happened at the bed & breackfast, Laura planned to cherish every moment she had with her little boy. _Just in case._ Stavros would never give up the chase for his princess and prince.

"Thank you for this."

"I didn't do much, just something extra I had hanging around."

"Luke Spencer has spare playground equipment sitting around? Sounds reasonable."

"Been thinking of dedicating a new park for a while now. Ordered the equipment but we forgot to clear the site, so it's all just been sitting up gathering dust anyway. Good to see somebody get some use out of it."

"Whatever your story is, thank you."

"You're always welcome."

Laura tucked her arms around her to ward off the night chill. It felt like somebody had stepped over her grave. She sought out the danger in plain sight.

"Junior's dad must be some kind of chump."

Laura paused her inspection of the high hedge enclosing the yard to glance at her ex-husband-to-be. "What's Rex's father got to do with this?"

"He's got you on the ropes. You're looking over your shoulder like you've got hellhounds nipping at your ankles. You're a fulltime Lucy Johnson, but it doesn't look much fun anymore."

"Running for your life isn't much fun when you've only got yourself to rely on." Strangers weren't to be trusted in her experience. _Anyone can be bought._ Trusting blindly meant risking Nikolas and Laura couldn't do that, not for anyone. _Not even for Luke Spencer._

"I thought you were dead. You don't know how many nights I stayed up praying—praying, Laura; _me!_—for you to walk back in that door. I loved you."

_Past tense._ Laura comforted herself with a lack of surprise.

"And I loved you. You were supposed to think I was dead and you did. Diabolical mission accomplished." Helena and Stavros had crowed at her sorrow. They won in the end, she'd give them that. Laura lost her true love anyway.

He spun her around and bent to look her in the eye. "I would have saved you, I want you to know that. I would have raised an army for you." His eyes bore into hers as if he could somehow make her believe he had, as if he could rewrite the past with a look.

A younger woman would have wept. The girl she was once would have fallen, swooning, into his arms at such a frank declaration of love. But that girl had since lived through Stavros and Helena Cassadine. That girl had gathered up her infant son and pitched them into the roiling Mediterranean on a patchwork skiff, not knowing whether they'd survive but sure they couldn't go on living as they were. The last decade of her youth had been lost to flight. Laura wouldn't lose the next to fancy.

"I know." She couldn't read his expressions anymore, not after this long, but she knew he wasn't happy.

"You know," he replied, letting her go. "Sure." He grunted and regained his composure. "You and Junior should think about sticking it out. Port Chuck hasn't been half as fun without you. Amy couldn't stand it. Said it wasn't home if you weren't here."

Laura's heart gave a jolt. She hadn't seen her sister in so many years now. _Nik would love her. _Given time, Nik could love this entire town. "It's not much like home without Amy either." She shook away the candy floss usurping rationality. "Doesn't matter anyway, Rex and I need to keep moving. A moving target's harder to hit, remember? I learned that from you."

"You weren't supposed to take my lessons about getting into trouble to heart, darlin'."

"I took everything you ever said to me to heart."

"Likewise." Luke ran a careless hand over his hair, mussing his stylish muss. Laura didn't allow herself long to watch. "Why didn't you come back, angel? Why not to me? I would have kept you safe."

"I didn't want you to become a target. I had to save who I could." News of her mother's death had sat in stark relief to the first blush of liberty Laura had experienced after her escape. Helena had arranged for Lesley Webber to die as punishment for Laura's insolence. Another infraction might lead the woman to lay waste to the entire town.

"Damn it, Laura, I was already a target! This was about me from the beginning. We could have faced them together. We can face them together from now on."

Laura cleared her closing throat. She wasn't any better in the ragweed and tall grass. "I think Holly might have a problem with that."

"She was with Robert, too, she knows all about vendettas."

Laura raked her fingers through her tangled hair. "Don't be stupid! You're golden, Luke. You and Holly, world weary and street smart and…beautiful, you're golden together. You'll have beautiful children," she laughed, maybe cried. "As soon as your lawyer friend gets here, we can sign the papers, and you two can make it official. I won't stand in your way. I wouldn't do that to you."

"I know you wouldn't. I know you better than that."

"Maybe you don't anymore. I'm not the girl I was."

"You're still a girl. Twenty-seven years old and you look like you've escaped a war. You've raised a refugee instead of a son. The way you pointed that gun at me when you thought I was trying to get to him, Laura, that's not new to you, you've done that before. You've been running for so long you don't understand red lights anymore. Don't you think it's about time you gave it a rest? Give this hick town another chance. It doesn't have to be forever, just until things have settled down some."

Laura exhaled in a huff, marching an anxious beat on the veranda. "I wish I could say yes, you don't know how I do, but I can't. I'll sign all the papers you want, Luke." Laura felt her eyes welling up and hated that he could still elicit this degree of vulnerability from her despite her vow to erect walls against him. "I'll watch you get married and eat cake and dance, but I will not stay in this city that I love but cannot keep for one more day than I have to. They blew up my room at the B&B three days after I showed up. Three days! My little boy could have been killed."

"Exactly why the two of you should stay at the manse with us."

_In the house with Luke and his fiancée._ The idea of it stabbed somewhere deep that Laura didn't know could still feel. "You're kidding."

"This is no joke. Laura, the mayoral mansion is big enough to fit you in with mine and the security's top notch. You're living out of a carpet bag and a coat. Bring the kid, stay with us until you get on your feet and…then, I guess you go on your way."

Laura was forever on her guard. She didn't have the luxury of being caught lying down. The Cassadines were waiting to snatch Nikolas back from her the second she faltered. Helena was no doubt giddy at the prospect of putting an end to the 'common scum' that had ensnared her beloved Stavros. Laura couldn't stand down a spell any more than she could deny the pleading in Luke's great blue eyes.

She gave up their staring contest to watch Nikolas give the monkey bars a second backwards-facing lap. "We'll see. Everything's up in the air for the moment, but thank you for the offer. It's kind of you." Laura tucked his hands into her coat pockets for warmth, it was getting hard to feel her fingers out here where the growing teeth of winter could be felt. Nik's cheeks glowed an ecstatic ruddy red from his inverted descent on the curlicue slide.

"It was decent of me, more like. And a little selfish. You've been busy for a long time and I want to know all about it."

"I don't know if I'm ready to tell anybody everything. It's not a pretty story."

"Don't care, I want to hear every ugly line. I owe you that."

Deep down, Laura really thought he did.

"We'll see."

She hadn't kept a promise since the day Nikolas was born and she promised he'd be safe.


	7. Chapter 7

Once Nikolas grew tired of the playset, Luke led Nik and Laura inside from the courtyard to the foot of the staircase.

"If you're up for a spot of TV, there's a set in the living room and another in the parlor upstairs; that's where Holly and I usually watch. You're welcome to use either."

Nikolas perked up at the promise of television, but it was futile. He was drooping on his feet.

"No, thanks. It's been a crazy day, I think we'll just turn in early."

"Right, right. I guess that's about as good an idea as any. By the way, I had somebody pick up your shopping from the docks. Most of it had been picked over already from what I could tell, but Junior's backpack must have got kicked under a bench along with his shoes, and they brought 'em over." Luke rubbed the back of his neck. "Wyndham's is already closed for the night, so I took the liberty of asking Holly to lend you a few things until we can replace some of what you lost. They're upstairs."

"We're all right." Laura gestured to her rucksack. "We keep fresh clothes on hand."

"Just offering, take 'em or leave 'em."

"All right. Thank Holly for me."

"I'll do that."

Laura jostled Nik's shoulder to rouse him a last time. "_Moro mou, _what do we say?"

"Thank you for your hospitality."

Luke ruffled his hair. "Happy to oblige."

Nik responded with a monstrous yawn and Laura swept him up into her arms where he began to doze.

"Which room did you say it was?"

Luke screwed up his face. "Guess I forgot to mention that. Upstairs, last door on the left. The bed should already be turned down and I had them put fresh towels in the bathroom in case the two of you wanna get cleaned up."

"Wow, that's…that's generous of you. You didn't need to go to so much trouble for us. Any old thing'd do."

"You kidding me? You and me, we go way back. Why would I give you anything if I wasn't about to give you my best? That's what you deserve."

Laura couldn't think of a worthwhile thing to say in reply. Everything worth saying was too late.

"Guess this means I'll see you two in the morning?"

"Guess you will."

…

Laura maneuvered her drowsy son from a much-needed bath to his reserve PJs in record time. He was well past protesting the strange bed she poured him into or the expensive cotton sheets she tucked around him. "_Ty moyo solnyshko_. Sweet dreams."

As she was just about to consider slipping into a set of silk sleep clothes Holly had lent her, Laura she registered a late arrival at the manse. Grabbing her Ruger, Laura took up position with an ear against the carved wood door and listened hard.

"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes? Get the hell in here."

"Feeling all right there, Spencer? You haven't had a knock on the head I should know about, eh?"

Laura felt a smile break out in response to Robert Scorpio's soothing Aussie burr.

"Haha, Scorpio, save the jokes for somebody not in the middle of crisis."

"You don't sound drunk, just knackered; can't be too bad."

"I've been entertaining guests and they've bedded down for the night. _Now_, I can take a drink. Come on up to the study, you're not gonna believe the story I've got for you."

"Lead the way."

Laura unconsciously leaned back from the closed door. She hadn't flipped the lock yet and wouldn't chance it knowing Luke and Robert were in the area. All the same, Laura re-opened the door a crack once she heard another open and shut without a locking click. She crept out and zeroed in on the voices of her two old friends two doors down. Technically, whatever Luke, the mayor, had to say to Robert, the police commissioner and his oldest friend, wasn't any of Laura's business—but it might be and the off-chance wasn't something Laura liked to risk. _All's fair in lost love and war._

"You look a sight," Robert said right off.

"Tell me about it."

"If you believe the scuttlebutt 'round the department water cooler, Laura Spencer's back from the dead."

Luke guffawed and it was the height of bitter humor. "She is." He sighed. "She is. God, she is. I've touched her, I've laid hands on her. She's real, she's not a dream."

"You don't sound overjoyed."

Laura chewed on her lip.

"I am! I mean it, I'm so happy I could burst, don't get me wrong. But I don't know what to do with her anymore. I don't know what to do, Scorpio. She keeps trying to leave. Hell, the way things are shaping up, she's probably climbing off the balcony as we speak with the little guy strapped to her back like a koala with separation anxiety. No matter what I say, Laura just keeps slipping out of reach."

"Then, maybe you should think about letting her go."

Luke scoffed. "Somebody tried to smoke her out of Mary Mae's, her and the kid both; I'm not letting her face that alone."

"You mean she's wrapped up in all that?"

"Boy, is she!"

"I just came from that end. Robin was right in the thick of it."

"She all right?"

"Shaken up and damned right to be. She'll be sporting scars for a time, but doctors say they should fade. I didn't know realize she was the one..." _He recognized me just a little bit._ Laura wasn't looking forward to their next conversation.

"I didn't either till I made my way over there. Don't give me that look! I told you I knew her from somewhere."

"If you're about to feed me the old song and dance about you and her being soulmates, I don't wanna hear it."

"Tough."

"Anyway, speaking of the kid, where'd he come from? If he's who I think he is, Robin talked about the little anklebiter for hours before Anna and me managed to put her to bed."

"Your guess is as good as mine. Whoever dear old dad is, he's bad news. I've never seen her this spooked."

"Maybe she's got the right idea if the son of a bitch's as bad as all that."

There was a pregnant pause in conversation. Laura edged closer to the cracked door.

"Don't look at me like that, Spencer. If she truly doesn't want to hang around, she won't and you can't force it on her."

"You think I don't know that? I know Laura. I know her like I know myself, _better_ than I know the man I see in the mirror every day. She's got a reason to be afraid. That's what's got me scared right along with her." Luke exhaled noisily in the tense office. "Rick's been on the phone and a bunch of the gang keeps calling asking me for news. I've had to take the damned thing of the hook because I don't know what I'm supposed to tell 'em. And Laura, she looks terrified half the time and ecstatic the other half of it. Then, she has these moments where she goes stock still and those eyes go sharp as ceremonial daggers on a sacrificial lamb—and the lamb is me!"

Robert hummed in glum humor. "Sounds like little Laura's all grown up. You said the kid's father wasn't much to write home about. Laura probably got a harsh lesson on trust from him."

_Yes, never, never trust a Cassadine._ Stefan had been the sole exception with Nikolas as his corollary.

"I wish I could blame him. I taught her enough about not trusting the men in your life. I never came back for her. Damn it, I didn't even know she was being held captive. I just assumed…" Luke thunked what had to be a crystal glass on his desk. "It's obvious they had her for a while, but she won't say for how long. She doesn't talk about much of anything except for signing the papers and getting the hell out of dodge. Junior's no better. Big and Little Fort Knox right in my very own home."

"If you're not happy to have them here, they don't have to stay. I'm sure there's a long list of folks who'd be happy to put them up other than you."

"She wouldn't stick around that long, I reckon. She'd run. After that scene at the B&B, I can't say I blame her."

"Cherry bombs, kerosene, and Molotov cocktails. Low-tech but effective and difficult to trace. This isn't one of Billy Eckert's little upstarts on the wharf. The sheer quantity tells us our perp meant business."

"This guy really wanted to do Laura and her boy some damage. It doesn't make sense. How do you look at that woman and decide she deserves to die? How do you look at her and take one footstep toward hurting her, over and over again? I couldn't. I just about opened my wrist after the Disco—I could _never_ harm her a second time, much less a third. What kind of dirtbag is this jerk?"

_He's a horrible man, the worst kind you can imagine. _Laura wrapped her arms around herself as though to hold in all the terror that threatened to spill onto the lush carpeted floor. She leaned on the wall outside Luke's office, unsure whether she should go inside or leave him to his meeting with Robert. She wanted to tell him how right he was about it all; she wanted to confess.

"Not to put too fine a point on it, but this sewer rat's my department. He played target practice with Robin, too. I'll _handle_ the bastard. You've got a public engagement party to organize and a wedding to plan. Let me deal with Laura's shadow."

"Don't know if I can do that. She's trusted me this far, I'm not about to abandon her now."

"You won't like what I'm about to say."

"Watch yourself, Commissioner."

"Blow it out your ear, Mr. Mayor. I'm saying this as your presumptive best man."

"Yeah, well, we'll see about that."

Robert softened his tone. "I'm saying you're still hung up on Laura and it's making you behave irrationally. It's been eight years, mate. You're alright to let go now."

A chair creaked only to be overshadowed by the dull padding of feet on the floor. Laura eased back a step or two. "I am letting go. I'm getting married."

"To my ex. Yeah, I got the invitation."

"And I thank you for being such a good sport about it."

"I got Anna and Robin in the offing. I can't complain I got shorted."

"Damn right." Luke slurped out of the blue and the pacing thuds picked up. "Laura doesn't think much of the time anyway. The sun sets and rises on that kid of hers. He loves her right back. There's just something about him, though."

"What's that?"

Laura's ears perked up.

"He looks like somebody I've seen before is all. I can't make it out just yet. It's that brooding thousand-yard stare of his. He's seven, for god's sake, and he looks like he's planning world domination for breakfast."

Laura's blood ran cold.

"I heard it all from Anna. Leave it to you to mash your ex-wife and her son in with your fiancée at the mayor's mansion. Some might call that mixed signals."

"No accounting for an idiot with a byline. I'm not about to turn her out to avoid a little tabloid sensationalism. Laura's not my ex-anything yet, which means I've got promises to fulfill. Besides, Holly doesn't mind."

"How thoughtful of you to run it past her! That's one way of looking at things; another way would be logically, which I know isn't a method you're much acquainted with. You've shoehorned into your happy home a woman the world will swear is the love of your life. What the hell is the matter with you?"

"Is this your protective ex-husband, 'hurt her and you're dead' speech? Because I gotta tell ya, it could use some spiffing up."

"This is my 'as your friend, I think you're a right dumbass' speech, actually, but I understand how that might be confusing for an idiot."

"I'm not in love with her anymore. I don't know why that even has to be said. It's been almost a decade, eight years and three months. I lost her near as soon as I found her. I'm about to lose her again."

Laura couldn't deny the truth of what he'd said. She planned to be with Nikolas on a plane to Ontario by noon tomorrow. _Our time is gone, I need to remember that._ Nostalgia was an insatiable beast.

"I don't think you ever got her back."

The pacing came to an end and a chair gave a great wail under Luke's weight. "She's staying out of consideration for me. Held prisoner for god knows how long and it's all down to me, but I ask and she stays just that little bit longer."

"Sounds like a sign."

"Some sign." Luke guzzled down his drink loudly enough for Laura to hear. "I keep thinking up with crazier and crazier schemes to get her to stay with me—here in town, I mean. Port Chuckles just ain't without Laura Vining Webber Baldwin Spencer."

"Busy girl."

"She's not going by any of 'em these days that I can see. I had somebody check the guest registry after the fire. She was registered under Kay Rex. The little man is just Rex. I caught her slip up once when she was setting the little tyke down for supper tonight. Something with an 'N', I think. Laura's no trendsetter, so I'd wager she'd pick something timeless. Something like Nathaniel or Nicholas; or Noel, if she had her heart set on it."

"You could always ask her."

"I doubt she'd take too kindly to the mayor snooping in her affairs."

_He knows me that well._

"If she's anything like the rest of the town, she'll get used to it. You've got too much time on your hands."

"Not this fiscal year, I don't."

Robert wise-assed, "And to think we all thought marrying Laura would be what slowed you down."

"Nuh-uh, she made me wanna go faster than ever."

_I never wanted us to stop._

"Careful there, old friend. Just because it's fast doesn't mean it's worth it in the end."

"I look at her sometimes and I think it might have been." Luke sniffed. "I watch her with that boy, patching up scraped elbows and fixing him food in my kitchen, and I think, _'look what I missed, look what they took.'_ And I get so angry about it I could hit something—_hard_. I know it's years and years behind us already, but damn if I don't feel it every time Junior smiles her same smile."

"You sure Junior isn't yours?"

He put voice to Laura's one unspoken regret.

"Sure as anything. The age is off by a year. Don't think I didn't think of it. I've done the math backwards and forwards. He's not mine."

"Could you love a son that wasn't yours?"

"For Laura, I could just about love a whole football team."

"You need to tread carefully, Spencer. The hurt's already in the air."

But Laura knew Robert was wrong._ The hurt's everywhere._

Laura tiptoed back to her room. She wouldn't be sleeping with the multitude of dangers ensnaring her mind and heart at this hour.

…

"They won't come in the middle of the night, y'know."

Laura glanced up from her vigil at the guest bedroom window to see Luke's silhouette in the doorway uplit by gas wall lamps set low.

"That's when they always come. I'm not convinced they can walk in daylight."

"I've got some old pals from my running days posted on all the adjoining street corners. Anybody comes, we'll have fair warning."

"Fair warning never stopped a bullet or a knife, not an arrow or a piano wire, not when they've got the most normal faces you ever laid eyes on. They look like librarians and auto mechanics; you'll never see them coming."

"I don't know about you, but I've seen some _pret-ty_ shady grease monkeys in my day. I can usually spot a gnarly gear head ten paces off in a headwind."

Laura disregarded the fondness unfurling in her chest even as it made her mouth curve. "What I'd give to know a trick like that; might have saved me a lot of inconvenience once or twice."

"Don't sweat it. You've got me."

But she didn't, not really, wasn't that the problem?

Luke circled the bed, glancing at its sole occupant, to sit with Laura on the window seat. "Junior sure is a heavy sleeper."

"He knows he's safe. I won't let the bad things get him."

Luke gently rapped her knee, his palm a flare of skin-heat outside her clothes. He went on, thoughtfully skimming the contours of her folded leg till he encountered the hilt of the gun sitting snug in Laura's sock beside her ankle. She didn't register the least alarm in his tone. "You could get a real holster."

"Had one. Left it when we ran."

"Get another."

"No time, no money. I prioritize and we get by."

He fingered the sooty hem of the jeans she'd bought just tonight. "That's no way to live."

"Then, we die."

"Who's got you on the run, baby, let me help."

Laura's stomach was instantly upset. _Letting him worry about it would be easy. He'd know how to make things all right, wouldn't he?_ Laura dismissed that still small voice as naive. She'd be damned if she'd become dependent on Luke Spencer's chivalry to carry the day. _Two years, it didn't; eight years now, a lifetime for Nik._

"Go to bed, Luke. Have your housekeeper go to the supermarket early, I'll make breakfast."

Luke slumped that little bit, his shoulders bumping hers on the trip. She let him keep that close. _Just for comfort._

"Eggs sunny-side up?" he tried, regaining some of his shine.

"And French toast, too, but good little incumbents have to go straight to sleep for that."

"Damn, you're good. I should have appointed you comptroller; Chuckles might be better off." Luke got up to go. Before he left, he leaned down to favor her brow with a kiss. "Try to get some sleep. Tomorrow's gonna beautiful."

"Promise?" she found herself asking, contrary to any specific intent. The words flew out on their own.

"Promise."

"Night, Luke."

"Good night, angel."

Laura sat lit for hours by the crescent moon shining over the courtyard and the lamplight bleeding in from the hall. Danger didn't come and Laura finally slept once the moon gave over to the sun.


	8. Chapter 8

…

Laura woke to careful jarring at her shoulder, where her head rested in cramped resolve after an uncomfortable nap. The sun screamed good morning through the window and her son mumbled it in the groggy weight of his crawl into her arms. But they were accustomed to discomfort and unease, and more wary of luxury than hardship, so they slept a half-hour more till came a knock on the door.

"Laura."

Laura's eyes shot open and she bolted upright and forward, only short of toppling Nikolas from his nautilus swaddle on her lap.

"Dad."

"Laura." His brown eyes had gone misty at the sight of her and his voice so hoarse it wasn't nearly a word, but it was her name and that was her father, making Laura every inch the girl that wanted somebody _else_ to make everything all better now.

"_Dad_."

Rick dropped his medical bag and reached out for her, sweeping her into a great bear of a hug with her son pressed safe, if startled, between them.

"Oh, Laura, I thought I'd never see you again. I thought you were gone. You were gone and I'd lost your mother and here you are. You came back. My girl, you came back." He cradled her face. "You came back. I didn't believe it, all the rumors flying around the hospital have been mad at best, but Luke called and I had to see. I had to see for myself. I wanted to believe," he swallowed, "I wanted to."

"You can believe, please believe, because I don't know if I do."

Nik squirmed to slide free of their impromptu huddle.

"It's all right, _mily_, we're okay."

Rick released the two of them to kneel in front of the window seat where'd they'd been asleep.

"Hi, there. I'm Rick. What's your name?"

Nik pensively chewed his lip and looked to his mother in search of instruction.

"Tell him whatever feels right, honey." Laura had been teaching her son to trust his gut all his life, she wouldn't lead him to defy that inborn instinct today.

"I'm Rex. Are you my grandpa?"

Rick switched his gaze to Laura, silently asking for confirmation. Laura couldn't speak, so she settled for a swift nod.

"I think I just might be. May I shake your hand?"

Nik offered his grandfather a stolid sort of handshake and, though Rick's hand encompassed his smaller one in its entirety, he didn't shy from the frankness of his new grandfather's perusal. _Princes don't._ Laura had done her best to train hers up well.

These two men after her own heart continued to size each other up like a puppy and full-grown dog meeting for the first time. There wasn't an ounce of blood to be shared between them, but Laura could have sworn that their grins were a perfect match.

"Dad, do you mind watching Rex for a little bit while I step outside?"

"I wouldn't mind a bit. What do you say, Rex?"

"Just for a little bit?"

"You bet."

"I guess that's okay."

Laura kissed his hair and stepped out, making sure to leave the room cracked in case her son or father called for her. She needed to speak to Luke about this. She visited his study first but found it empty. On checking the hour, she found it closer to lunch than breakfast. _So much for French toast._ She suspected Luke must have already headed to the office for work. _I'll have to yell at him later._

Just as she was about to return to her room, Laura heard a chorus of familiar voices downstairs. She eased up to the second-floor landing, concealing herself neatly behind the bend in the corridor.

_Gail and Lee!_ They were talking to Luke.

Laura had to bite her tongue to keep from calling out.

"Thanks for helping us out, Lee, Gail. Things have been pretty hectic this last day or so."

Gail tutted. "So we've heard. General Hospital is in a tizzy. Last I heard Rick Webber is three minutes from storming the gates and Scotty is more than ready to give him a hand. What's happened, Luke?"

"Well, you're late to the party on the Webber invasion: the good doctor is in. As for the rest..." Luke went momentarily quiet. "All right, don't say it's me that told you, but it's Laura, she's alive."

"My god." There was an abrupt slapping sound followed by a yelp Laura knew had to come from Lee. "And you didn't say a word! How could you, you know I loved that girl."

"Attorney-client privilege extends to the supposedly dead, which you well know, Dr. Baldwin," Lee lectured, trying for stern only to land at peeved.

"She's family."

"And a client, nonetheless."

"Hogwash. You said you were preparing emergency dissolution papers. Whatever for? Luke, you and Laura are getting divorced?"

"I'm supposed to be marrying Holly Sutton Scorpio, so we'd better get on with it."

The mother and friend seemed to war with the psychiatrist in Gail. "How's Laura taking it? She must have been through some ordeal if it kept her away from you for this long. The two of you were so in love."

An edgy hush prevailed.

"I don't know where she's been or where she's headed, but I don't aim to get in her way."

Lee countered in the measured, impassioned tones of a counselor, "Have you considered that you should?"

Luke heaved a sigh, exhaustion weighing down each syllable, "Every minute since her eyes met mine in front of City Hall."

Laura's soles began to itch. She felt the urge to run.

**…**

Laura felt cornered in the den.

"Sorry I overslept; I know I promised to make breakfast." She lamented, more so, that they wouldn't be able to make a noon flight to Ontario at this rate.

Luke stretched to rest his arm behind his fiancée. "You needed the sleep. Lionel fed us up early this morning. We've been brainstorming."

"Brainstorming…about me? What's there to brainstorm about?"

Laura peered at the assembled group, her nerves jangling. Mary Mae, Luke, Robert, Holly, Anna Devane, her father, and the Baldwins, minus Scotty, were all in attendance. She'd taken leave of the ground floor to get some fresh air while they convened. _Chalk up that up as one more mistake._

This situation was spinning out beyond her control. _I can only control what I do and say._ _Let's start by assessing the damage._

"Mary Mae, you're okay? I thought you'd been killed."

"Oh no, child, it takes more than a couple of thugs to put down this old war horse. They knocked me out real good and left me in the bushes outside in case I woke up. I'm just sorry I wasn't there for Robin and little man Rex. They must have been terrified."

"It's okay, everything turned out for the better. Robin took charge and kept the two of them safe. Oh, Robert, Anna, Robin was amazing. Rex has nothing but good things to say about her; I think he might be a little smitten with your daughter now."

Robert puffed out his chest, all cock of the walk. "I can't fault his taste. He knows a lady of quality when he meets one."

Anna Devane's sidelong glance was a mixture of profound embarrassment and love. Laura knew the feeling well.

Robert sat forward. "I know you probably don't want to hear this, but I'll have to question you on the thugs that came after you and your boy last night. We'll need to get some kind of statement on record to bring them in."

"You won't be able to find them. They're smoke. They just disappear when they're done doing what they're paid to do. It's like they never existed."

"We'll find them."

"I want you to, but I know it won't do any good. It won't stop him."

"It might."

"If you think that, that proves you don't know who you're dealing with."

Luke interrupted. "We'll know when you tell us."

_ I don't want to talk about this. _"You know what, I'm kind of hungry." Laura rubbed her sweaty palms on her jeans. "I could cook if anybody's hungry again."

Luke and Robert shared a dubious look. "You cook?"

At Luke's disbelief, Laura scowled. "Yeah, it's something you get used to doing for yourself. I can roast a pretty rack of lamb, too, if you've got it lying around."

"Oh, yeah. Where'd you pick that up?"

"Living in Turkey with—ah, _we_ lived there and you get used to the spices and the different dishes and concoctions after a while. I mean, the food's just incredible. It'll change your life. I could make us something while you all figure out what you want to say to me." _Or you could all leave me alone. _

Fat chance.

"I'm inclined to say we let the little lady have a go at it. I haven't had a good _etli bamya_ in years," Robert opined, nostalgic.

Holly leaned forward, propping her head on her hand. "_Kavurma_'s more my speed. If you're sure, Laura, I'm happy to help. I'm no great cook, but I have a gift for the chopping block."

"Way to be reassuring, English." Luke nudged a toe against his fiancée's ankle.

Holly's eyes grew wide. "Wasn't I? Oh! So sorry, Laura, love, I meant that as a genuine offer."

Despite herself, Laura couldn't help finding the two of them sweet.

She smiled sincerely. "I know. There's a certain point where it's ridiculous to take offense at some things. We've long passed it. Anyway, there's no need to go to any trouble, I'll make do with whatever's in the pantry. It's sort of my thing. Please, just…talk amongst yourselves." Laura was good at playing hostess. When she wasn't playing prisoner, she was allowed to do little else.

Her smile dimmed upon departing the living room for the kitchen. The people in that room brought out a hodgepodge of feelings within her. They frightened her, they cared for her, they doubted her; above all, they were a threat to her. Seeing them here, assembled for her benefit was a clear cut ploy. Interacting with these people was intended to compel Laura to remain in Port Charles. Luke had said as much last night. _'Crazier and crazier schemes'? What's crazier or more devious than an impromptu family reunion?_ Amy was the only one missing from their band of misfits and Laura prayed she wouldn't make an unscheduled appearance any time soon.

Laura was astonished to find that house cook had outfitted the mayor's kitchen with an assortment of prime lamb cuts and a cache of Marmaran spices Laura would have labored to get a hold of at her tourist-trap eatery in Ankara. _Taking them would be rude, leaving them would be idiotic._ She tapped her foot consideration. _This is going to require a bigger knapsack._

In need of something to distract herself, Laura washed her hands and took to the pantry.

She was debating the pros and cons of cucumber and yogurt salad over eggplant puree when a violent banging started at the kitchen doors leading outside.

Laura immediately brandished her gun.

They were securely shut, but whoever was banging away didn't seem to care much for locks.

"Spencer, open up! I know you've got Laura in there."

_Scotty._

Laura dropped to the floor behind the counter. The gauzy curtains weren't much of a window covering in the daytime, but she might have been lucky enough not to catch his notice.

"Laura, it's me, Scotty."

_No such luck._

Laura leapt a foot at a sudden tap on her back. She twisted to face her assailant. Scotty kept knocking. Holly Scorpio favored Laura's stance with a calculating gaze, not an ounce of trepidation in evidence.

"Holly! Hi, I didn't hear you come in." Embarrassed, Laura lowered her gun.

"There was such a racket in here I thought you might have fallen."

"No, I'm okay, but I think you might have company there," Laura indicated the shuddering doors.

"Is that Scott Baldwin?"

"Sounds like it to me. Maybe you should answer? If you'll excuse me, I ought to check on the kids."

Laura retreated up the servant's staircase, skipping stairs as she could. She didn't want to see Scotty, she didn't want to see anybody else. Didn't they get it by now? The longer she was here and the more people who knew, the less safe any of them were. Stavros and Helena were more than capable of killing them where they stood, exactly as they had her mother. She'd been a fool to linger this long and that foolishness might cost her first love his life. _Scotty never knows when to cut his losses with me, none of them do._

Laura burst into the room she'd been sharing with Nik to find her son and Robin ensconced in a nail-biting game of Operation.

"Robin, honey, I need to speak to Nikolas about something, but I'm working on lunch downstairs. Would go down to the kitchen and make sure the sauce I'm working on doesn't burn?"

"Sure. Back later, Rex."

" 'Kay."

Robin skipped out of the bedroom and shut the door behind her. Laura waited until she heard the girl's steps taper in the distance and began stuffing their few possessions into their respective bags.

"_Detka_, we have to go."

"We just got here. I like it." The house and the playset and the doting aunts and uncles included therein went unsaid.

"I know, baby, I know, but we can't get to Niagara Falls if we stay here and we can't afford to take all our friends, and what I have told you about that?"

Nik grumbled, "If you don't have enough for everyone, don't share with anybody."

"There's a good boy. Put your shoes on, please. Let me know if you need help with the laces."

"I can tie 'em. Papa showed me the bunny trick."

Laura covered her mouth. _Dad will hate me for this. They'll hate me._ "That's great. Maybe you can show me your new trick when we get on our way. I'd love to see."

"I don't think I'm supposed to. Papa Rick said it was a secret."

"I promise I'll keep it super secret."

Nikolas scrutinized her. "You have to pinkie swear."

They linked pinkies and it was so.

Nik leaned up and cupped his hands around his mouth. "I'll show you later, 'kay?"

"I can't wait."

They packed their lives on their shoulders as they always had and made off lie triumphant vandals.

Laura concluded that the courtyard doors to the veranda were their best bet for a hasty exit. They departed via the servant's staircase leading back to the kitchen. The main staircase was too risky since they'd have to pass the downstairs den to leave. Laura held a finger to her lips to signal for quiet and led the way.

The kitchen had been restored to peace when they came down. The fig Laura had been slicing had been minced in her absence and set aside, a couple of cloves of garlic sat crushed in a wooden bowl. Someone had known what she was going for. _Holly cooks, too? No wonder Luke's enamored._

Nik gave an interested sniff toward the chopped ginger root. He probably remembered the smell from his days playing in Turkey whilst Laura worked. _We'll go back one day. For him._

Laura and Nik followed the same path they had taken to visit the playground the previous night. Laura was taking pains to shut the door behind them soundlessly when a vigorous cough to her right informed her that her efforts were wasted. She shouldn't have been surprised to see her second husband lying in wait whilst flipping a coin for sport.

He flipped his quarter and checked the draw. Laura couldn't see the outcome.

"All that and you're still trying to shake us like dog shi—uh, doo off your shoe." Luke winced. "Sorry, kid. Go on back inside, I think Robin's looking for you. Something about 'Operation'?"

Nik looked back and forth, from her to Luke, apprehensively squeezing his bookbag straps in time. "We're going away."

Luke flipped his quarter and stuck it in his pocket without taking a peek.

"Not yet, you're not."

Nik edged closer to Laura. "Mama?"

Laura poked Luke in the chest. _When did he get that close?_ "Watch your tone. You do _not_ give my child orders. You have no authority over us."

"By the power vested in me by the citizens of this godforsaken port city, you bet your ass I do."

Nikolas stamped right up to Luke, his strong chin jutted forward and dark eyes impertinent as any king. "Don't you say bad words at my mama."

Luke flicked his eyes to the tiny figure interposed between them. He took a steadying breath and squatted down to Nik's level.

"Son, your mama's being very pigheaded right now."

"Mama says it's being 'determined.' And you have to use nice words or go to timeout, Mama's rules."

Luke cocked an incredulous brow toward Laura. "Well, we wouldn't want to disrespect Mama's rules, would we? Those are _very_ important. You're right, it was rude of me to swear. I apologize to you and your mama."

Laura rubbed Nik's back. "What do we say when someone apologizes, Rex?"

"Thank you, Mr. Mayor."

"You've very welcome."

"I need to talk to Mayor Spencer for a minute. I want you to find Papa Rick and wait with him. Can you do that for me?"

Nik's expression grew stormy and obstinate. Splitting up from his mother was his least favorite tactic.

"_Dorogoy_."

Nik jutted his jaw forth, glaring, recalcitrant, down his strong Greek nose.

"And here I thought his name was Rex," Luke butted in, never one to miss a quip.

Laura sent him a quelling look. "It's a term of endearment."

"Like '_moro mou_,' right? Or '_širdelė._' You're just full of surprises."

"I didn't know you were keeping track, otherwise I might have used smaller words."

"Youch, baby, that stings. It's just a little idle curiosity. Can't a guy ask his old lady a question?"

"You know what happened to the cat who pried where he wasn't wanted."

"He got the cream."

Laura cast her eyes heavenward.

"Or was it the canary? Can't remember which, but he definitely got his way."

"That's not how life works."

"It can."

Laura groaned, fingering the fraying braid of her hair. Nikolas cuddled up protectively against her side.

"Come back inside, let's talk about all this."

"We've talked."

"_I_'ve talked. _You_'ve dodged. Isn't it about time we got this whole thing out in the open?"

"Lee brought the papers, didn't he?"

"Yeah, they're up in my office."

"Let's get them signed, so we can get going."

"You find my company that hateful?"

Laura waited till she'd swallowed back a bigger confession to respond. "No."

"Stay."

"We're not safe here."

"You're safer here than anyplace else this town's got to offer. We've got some double agents, some cops, some head shrinks, a prodigy, and Miss Mary Mae Ward on our side. Any idiot bold enough to take us on deserves to lose his shirt."

"I can't convince you that he's dangerous if you don't want to see. Your ego will cause incalculable damage to a city I love. You and Scotty. Who told him I was here? The two of you have to understand what you're risking. He could bring hell down on our heads. He can't see me."

Luke emitted a lamenting sigh.

"I know you're out of your mind worrying, but Baldwin is not the bad guy here. I can't believe I'm—what am I saying here? I'm actually saying this." Luke mimed gagging. "Baldwin is a low down, dirty slime, but he's not your boogeyman. Don't let him be what sends you running."

Laura had never been angrier at herself for not running. Running was the safe way out. So why wasn't she running now?

"Anyhow, I was promised Turkish cuisine. English and Scorpio raved the stuff into the stratosphere and my poor stomach couldn't take the letdown. Have a heart, Laura. Feed a public servant."

Laura forced herself to loosen her grasp on Nikolas when he began to squirm under the pressure. "On one condition."

"Let's hear it."

"I can't deal with Scotty right now." _Ever_, she meant.

"Not a problem. Baldwin Jr. is one more tantrum from trying the police commissioner's patience. He hasn't got a friend in the mayor's office either. You don't want Baldwin in your hair, he's gone. I'll throw the sore-losing weasel out myself."

He was making off to do just then when Laura caught him by his sleeve. "Don't antagonize him. I can't afford to borrow trouble; I've got too much of my own to get by with."

**…**

Hours and one delectable Turkish dining experience later, Laura skimmed her divorce papers. She wasn't one to sign something without giving it a read-through. Her soul already belonged to a villain; trust only went so far for her own personal anti-hero.

"What's this?" She pointed to a lengthy subsection near the end.

"Hmm?"

"Don't you 'hmm' me. What the hell is this?" Laura flicked the sheath of paper toward Luke.

He gave the paperwork a glance. "It looks perfectly in order to me."

"What's this about alimony? I don't want alimony. I don't need it, either."

"Then don't spend it. Let it sit in an account accruing interest until you _do_ need it. Think of it as a rainy day fund."

"I have one." True enough. Stefan had left a discreet trust for her and Nikolas in the event of his death. Helena's dictatorial oversight ensured it was all but untouchable in present circumstances.

"I don't believe you. If you had one, you'd have used the money to replace your ankle holster."

"I didn't have time. Maybe you haven't noticed, but I've been busy trying to stay alive."

"Good thing I have lackeys for stuff like that." Luke pulled something out of a desk drawer and spun it across the blotter in her direction. It was a worn-in brown leather ankle rig. "I had to take a guess on your ankle size, but it should just about fit. It's adjustable, so…"

Laura let it remain on the desk untouched.

"You didn't have to."

"Maybe not, but I wanted to. I've got more dough than I can spend and only a few folks to spend it on. Be glad I didn't decide to spoil Junior with a dump truck full of toys like I did Lucas."

"We couldn't carry all that with us."

"I thought maybe it could have made you stay."

Laura rubbed her eyes, in a fight to the death with fatigue and impatience and damned regret.

"You'll have to let me go sometime."

"I will." Luke tapped his spidery fingers on the top page, and then pushed the papers back to her. "It's a gift of love, not a ball and chain, darlin'. Take it for what it is."

That's what she was afraid to do.

But Laura thought of her son and a little diner in British Colombia run by just the two of them. A whole new start. _Could be great._ She owed her son a chance at great for once in his young life; normal, even.

Without permitting herself a moment's regret, Laura took up Luke's fancy pen and signed her real name on the dotted line.

_And we all try to live happily ever after. Somehow._


End file.
